Provably Correct Compiler Generation

We have designed, implemented, and proved the correctness of a compiler generator that accepts action semantic descriptions of imperative programming languages. We have used it to generate compilers for both a toy language and a non-trivial subset of Ada. The generated compilers emit absolute code for an abstract RISC machine language that is assembled into code for the SPARC and the HP Precision Architecture. The generated code is an order of magnitude better than that produced by compilers generated by the classical systems of Mosses, Paulson, and Wand. Our machine language needs no run time type-checking and is thus more realistic than those considered in previous compiler proofs. We use solely algebraic specifications; proofs are given in the initiaI model. The use of action semantics makes the processable language specifications easy to read and pleasant to work with. We view our compiler generator as a promising first step towards user-friendly and automatic generation of realistic and provably correct compilers

Type Inference for Place-Oblivious Objects

In a distributed system, access to local data is much faster than access to remote data. As a help to programmers, some languages require every access to be local. A program in those languages can access remote data via first a shift of the place of computation and then a local access. To enforce this discipline, researchers have presented type systems that determine whether every access is local and every place shift is appropriate. However, those type systems fall short of handling a common programming pattern that we call place-oblivious objects. Such objects safely access other objects without knowledge of their place. In response, we present the first type system for place-oblivious objects along with an efficient inference algorithm and a proof that inference is P-complete. Our example language extends the Abadi-Cardelli object calculus with place shift and existential types, and our implementation has inferred types for some microbenchmarks

Information flow analysis for a dynamically typed language with staged metaprogramming

Web applications written in JavaScript are regularly used for dealing with sensitive or personal data. Consequently, reasoning about their security properties has become an important problem, which is made very difficult by the highly dynamic nature of the language, particularly its support for runtime code generation via eval. In order to deal with this, we propose to investigate security analyses for languages with more principled forms of dynamic code generation. To this end, we present a static information flow analysis for a dynamically typed functional language with prototype-based inheritance and staged metaprogramming. We prove its soundness, implement it and test it on various examples designed to show its relevance to proving security properties, such as noninterference, in JavaScript. To demonstrate the applicability of the analysis, we also present a general method for transforming a program using eval into one using staged metaprogramming. To our knowledge, this is the first fully static information flow analysis for a language with staged metaprogramming, and the first formal soundness proof of a CFA-based information flow analysis for a functional programming language

Polyvariant Analysis of the Untyped Lambda Calculus

We present a polyvariant closure, safety, and binding time analysis for the untyped lambda calculus. The innovation is to analyze each abstraction afresh at all syntactic application points. This is achieved by a semantics-preserving program transformation followed by a novel monovariant analysis, expressed using type constraints. The constraints are solved in cubic time by a single fixed-point computation.Safety analysis is aimed at determining if a term will cause an error during evaluation. We have recently proved that the monovariant safety analysis accepts strictly more terms than simple type inference. This paper demonstrates that the polyvariant transformation makes even more terms acceptable, even some without higher-order polymorphic types. Furthermore, polyvariant binding time analysis can improve the partial evaluators that base a polyvariant specialization on only monovariant binding time analysis

A Unified Type System for Object-Oriented Programming

We present a new type system for object-oriented languages with assignments. Types are sets of classes, subtyping is set inclusion, and genericity is class substitution. The type system enables separate compilation, and unifies, generalizes, and simplifies the type systems underlying SIMULA/BETA, C++, EIFFEL, and Typed Smalltalk, and the type system with type substitutions proposed by Palsberg and Schwartzbach, Classes and types are both modeled as node-labeled, ordered regular trees; this allows an efficient type-checking algorithm

Safety Analysis versus Type Inference

Safety analysis is an algorithm for determining if a term in the untyped lambda calculus with constants is safe, i.e., if it does not cause an error during evaluation. This ambition is also shared by algorithms for type inference. Safety analysis and type inference are based on rather different perspectives, however. Safety analysis is based on closure analysis, whereas type inference attempts to assign a type to all subterms.In this paper we prove that safety analysis is sound, relative to both a strict and a lazy operational semantics, and superior to type inference, in the sense that it accepts strictly more safe lambda terms.The latter result may indicate the relative potentials of static program analyses based on respectively closure analysis and type inference

Three Discussions on Object-Oriented Typing

This paper summarizes three discussions conducted at the ECOOP'91 W5 Workshop on ''Types, Inheritance, and Assignments'' Tuesday July 16, 1991 in Geneva, Switzerland, organized by the authors. The three discussions were entitled ''Classes versus Types'', ''Static versus Dynamic Typing'', and ''Type Inference''. All these topics were assumed to be volatile and controversial; indeed, a broad range of diverging opinions were represented. However, much superficial disagreement seemed to be rooted in confusions about terminology. When such issues were resolved, there appeared a consensus about basic definitions and the - often incompatible - choices that one is at liberty to make. This clarification, which we hope to have described below, was the most important achievement of the workshop

Eta-Expansion Does The Trick (Revised Version)

Partial-evaluation folklore has it that massaging one's source programs can make them specialize better. In Jones, Gomard, and Sestoft's recent textbook, a whole chapter is dedicated to listing such "binding-time improvements": nonstandard use of continuation passing style, eta-expansion, and a popular transformation called "The Trick". We provide a unified view of these binding-time improvements, from a typing perspective.Just as a proper treatment of product values in partial evaluationrequires partially static values, a proper treatment of disjoint sums requires moving static contexts across dynamic case expressions. This requirement precisely accounts for the nonstandard use of continuation-passing style encountered in partial evaluation. Eta-expansion thusacts as a uniform binding-time coercion between values and contexts, be they of function type, product type, or disjoint-sum type. For the latter case, it enables "The Trick".In this article, we extend Gomard and Jones's partial evaluatorfor the lambda-calculus, lambda-Mix, with products and disjoint sums; we pointout how eta-expansion for (finite) disjoint sums enables The Trick; we generalize our earlier work by identifying that eta-expansion can be obtained in the binding-time analysis simply by adding two coercion rules; and we specify and prove the correctness of our extension to lambda-Mix.Keywords: Partial evaluation, binding-time analysis, program specialization,binding-time improvement, eta-expansion, static reduction

Action semantics in retrospect

This paper is a themed account of the action semantics project, which Peter Mosses has led since the 1980s. It explains his motivations for developing action semantics, the inspirations behind its design, and the foundations of action semantics based on unified algebras. It goes on to outline some applications of action semantics to describe real programming languages, and some efforts to implement programming languages using action semantics directed compiler generation. It concludes by outlining more recent developments and reflecting on the success of the action semantics project