We introduce a new nameless representation of lambda terms inspired by
ordered logic. At a lambda abstraction, number and relative position of all
occurrences of the bound variable are stored, and application carries the
additional information where to cut the variable context into function and
argument part. This way, complete information about free variable occurrence is
available at each subterm without requiring a traversal, and environments can
be kept exact such that they only assign values to variables that actually
occur in the associated term. Our approach avoids space leaks in interpreters
that build function closures.
In this article, we prove correctness of the new representation and present
an experimental evaluation of its performance in a proof checker for the
Edinburgh Logical Framework.
Keywords: representation of binders, explicit substitutions, ordered
contexts, space leaks, Logical Framework.Comment: In Proceedings LFMTP 2011, arXiv:1110.668
