On Asynchronous Session Semantics

This paper studies a behavioural theory of the π-calculus with session types under the fundamental principles of the practice of distributed computing — asynchronous communication which is order-preserving inside each connection (session), augmented with asynchronous inspection of events (message arrivals). A new theory of bisimulations is introduced, distinct from either standard asynchronous or synchronous bisimilarity, accurately capturing the semantic nature of session-based asynchronously communicating processes augmented with event primitives. The bisimilarity coincides with the reduction-closed barbed congruence. We examine its properties and compare them with existing semantics. Using the behavioural theory, we verify that the program transformation of multithreaded into event-driven session based processes, using Lauer-Needham duality, is type and semantic preserving

Explicit connection actions in multiparty session types

This work extends asynchronous multiparty session types (MPST) with explicit connection actions to support protocols with op- tional and dynamic participants. The actions by which endpoints are connected and disconnected are a key element of real-world protocols that is not treated in existing MPST works. In addition, the use cases motivating explicit connections often require a more relaxed form of mul- tiparty choice: these extensions do not satisfy the conservative restric- tions used to ensure safety in standard syntactic MPST. Instead, we de- velop a modelling-based approach to validate MPST safety and progress for these enriched protocols. We present a toolchain implementation, for distributed programming based on our extended MPST in Java, and a core formalism, demonstrating the soundness of our approach. We discuss key implementation issues related to the proposed extensions: a practi- cal treatment of choice subtyping for MPST progress, and multiparty correlation of dynamic binary connections

Behavioral types in programming languages

A recent trend in programming language research is to use behav- ioral type theory to ensure various correctness properties of large- scale, communication-intensive systems. Behavioral types encompass concepts such as interfaces, communication protocols, contracts, and choreography. The successful application of behavioral types requires a solid understanding of several practical aspects, from their represen- tation in a concrete programming language, to their integration with other programming constructs such as methods and functions, to de- sign and monitoring methodologies that take behaviors into account. This survey provides an overview of the state of the art of these aspects, which we summarize as the pragmatics of behavioral types

On asynchronous session semantics

This paper studies a behavioural theory of the p-calculus with session types under the fundamental principles of the practice of distributed computing — asynchronous communication which is order-preserving inside each connection (session), augmented with asynchronous inspection of events (message arrivals). A new theory of bisimulations is introduced, distinct from either standard asynchronous or synchronous bisimilarity, accurately capturing the semantic nature of session-based asynchronously communicating processes augmented with event primitives. The bisimilarity coincides with the reduction-closed barbed congruence. We examine its properties and compare them with existing semantics. Using the behavioural theory, we verify that the program transformation of multithreaded into event-driven session based processes, using Lauer-Needham duality, is type and semantic preserving. Our benchmark results demonstrate the potential of the sessiontype based translation as semantically transparent optimisation techniques

Parameterised Multiparty Session Types

For many application-level distributed protocols and parallel algorithms, the set of participants, the number of messages or the interaction structure are only known at run-time. This paper proposes a dependent type theory for multiparty sessions which can statically guarantee type-safe, deadlock-free multiparty interactions among processes whose specifications are parameterised by indices. We use the primitive recursion operator from G\"odel's System T to express a wide range of communication patterns while keeping type checking decidable. To type individual distributed processes, a parameterised global type is projected onto a generic generator which represents a class of all possible end-point types. We prove the termination of the type-checking algorithm in the full system with both multiparty session types and recursive types. We illustrate our type theory through non-trivial programming and verification examples taken from parallel algorithms and Web services usecases.Comment: LMCS 201

Session Types in a Linearly Typed Multi-Threaded Lambda-Calculus

We present a formalization of session types in a multi-threaded lambda-calculus (MTLC) equipped with a linear type system, establishing for the MTLC both type preservation and global progress. The latter (global progress) implies that the evaluation of a well-typed program in the MTLC can never reach a deadlock. As this formulated MTLC can be readily embedded into ATS, a full-fledged language with a functional programming core that supports both dependent types (of DML-style) and linear types, we obtain a direct implementation of session types in ATS. In addition, we gain immediate support for a form of dependent session types based on this embedding into ATS. Compared to various existing formalizations of session types, we see the one given in this paper is unique in its closeness to concrete implementation. In particular, we report such an implementation ready for practical use that generates Erlang code from well-typed ATS source (making use of session types), thus taking great advantage of the infrastructural support for distributed computing in Erlang.Comment: This is the original version of the paper on supporting programming with dyadic session types in AT

Lightweight session programming in scala

Designing, developing and maintaining concurrent applications is an error-prone and time-consuming task; most difficulties arise because compilers are usually unable to check whether the inputs/outputs performed by a program at runtime will adhere to a given protocol specification. To address this problem, we propose lightweight session programming in Scala: we leverage the native features of the Scala type system and standard library, to introduce (1) a representation of session types as Scala types, and (2) a library, called lchannels, with a convenient API for session-based programming, supporting local and distributed communication. We generalise the idea of Continuation-Passing Style Protocols (CPSPs), studying their formal relationship with session types. We illustrate how session programming can be carried over in Scala: how to formalise a communication protocol, and represent it using Scala classes and lchannels, letting the compiler help spotting protocol violations. We attest the practicality of our approach with a complex use case, and evaluate the performance of lchannels with a series of benchmarks

Modular session types for objects

Session types allow communication protocols to be specified type-theoretically so that protocol implementations can be verified by static type checking. We extend previous work on session types for distributed object-oriented languages in three ways. (1) We attach a session type to a class definition, to specify the possible sequences of method calls. (2) We allow a session type (protocol) implementation to be modularized, i.e. partitioned into separately-callable methods. (3) We treat session-typed communication channels as objects, integrating their session types with the session types of classes. The result is an elegant unification of communication channels and their session types, distributed object-oriented programming, and a form of typestate supporting non-uniform objects, i.e. objects that dynamically change the set of available methods. We define syntax, operational se-mantics, a sound type system, and a sound and complete type checking algorithm for a small distributed class-based object-oriented language with structural subtyping. Static typing guarantees that both sequences of messages on channels, and sequences of method calls on objects, conform to type-theoretic specifications, thus ensuring type-safety. The language includes expected features of session types, such as delegation, and expected features of object-oriented programming, such as encapsulation of local state.Comment: Logical Methods in Computer Science (LMCS), International Federation for Computational Logic, 201