Run-time Type Research Articles

AspectML

This article defines AspectML, a typed functional, aspect-oriented programming language. The main contribution of AspectML is the seamless integration of polymorphism, run-time type analysis and aspect-oriented programming language features. In particular, AspectML allows programmers to define type-safe polymorphic advice using pointcuts constructed from a collection of polymorphic join points. AspectML also comes equipped with a type inference algorithm that conservatively extends Hindley--Milner type inference. To support first-class polymorphic point-cut designators, a crucial feature for developing aspect-oriented profiling or logging libraries, the algorithm blends the conventional Hindley--Milner type inference algorithm with a simple form of local type inference. We give our language operational meaning via a type-directed translation into an expressive type-safe intermediate language. Many complexities of the source language are eliminated in this translation, leading to a modular specification of its semantics. One of the novelties of the intermediate language is the definition of polymorphic labels for marking control-flow points. When a set of labels is assembled as a pointcut, the type of each label is an instance of the type of the pointcut.

Melange

Most implementations of critical Internet protocols are written in type-unsafe languages such as C or C++ and are regularly vulnerable to serious security and reliability problems. Type-safe languages eliminate many errors but are not used to due to the perceived performance overheads. We combine two techniques to eliminate this performance penalty in a practical fashion: strong static typing and generative meta-programming. Static typing eliminates run-time type information by checking safety at compile-time and minimises dynamic checks. Meta-programming uses a single specification to abstract the low-level code required to transmit and receive packets. Our domain-specific language, MPL, describes Internet packet protocols and compiles into fast, zero-copy code for both parsing and creating these packets. MPL is designed for implementing quirky Internet protocols ranging from the low-level: Ethernet, IPv4, ICMP and TCP; to the complex application-level: SSH, DNS and BGP; and even file-system protocols such as 9P. We report on fully-featured SSH and DNS servers constructed using MPL and our OCaml framework Melange, and measure greater throughput, lower latency, better flexibility and more succinct source code than their C equivalents OpenSSH and BIND. Our quantitative analysis shows that the benefits of MPL-generated code overcomes the additional overheads of automatic garbage collection and dynamic bounds checking. Qualitatively, the flexibility of our approach shows that dramatic optimisations are easily possible.

Free Theorems and Runtime Type Representations

Reynolds's abstraction theorem [John C. Reynolds. Types, abstraction and parametric polymorphism. In Information Processing '83, pages 513–523. North-Holland, 1983. Proceedings of the IFIP 9th World Computer Congress], often referred to as the parametricity theorem, can be used to derive properties about functional programs solely from their types. Unfortunately, in the presence of runtime type analysis, the abstraction properties of polymorphic programs are no longer valid. However, runtime type analysis can be implemented with term-level representations of types, as in the λR language of Crary et al. [Karl Crary, Stephanie Weirich, and Greg Morrisett. Intensional polymorphism in type erasure semantics. Journal of Functional Programming, 12(6):567–600, November 2002], where case analysis on these runtime representations introduces type refinement. In this paper, we show that representation-based analysis is consistent with type abstraction by extending the abstraction theorem to such a language. We also discuss the “free theorems” that result. This work provides a foundation for the more general problem of extending the abstraction theorem to languages with generalized algebraic datatypes (gadts).

Typed parametric polymorphism for aspects

We study the incorporation of generic types in aspect languages. Since advice acts like method update, such a study has to accommodate the subtleties of the interaction of classes, polymorphism and aspects. Indeed, simple examples demonstrate that current aspect compiling techniques do not avoid runtime type errors. We explore type systems with polymorphism for two models of parametric polymorphism: the type erasure semantics of Generic Java, and the type carrying semantics of designs such as generic C#. Our main contribution is the design and exploration of a source-level type system for a parametric OO language with aspects. We prove progress and preservation properties. We believe our work is the first source-level typing scheme for an aspect-based extension of a parametric object-oriented language.

Type checking a multithreaded functional language with session types

We define a language whose type system, incorporating session types, allows complex protocols to be specified by types and verified by static type checking. A session type, associated with a communication channel, specifies the state transitions of a protocol and also the data types of messages associated with transitions; thus type checking can verify both correctness of individual messages and correctness of sequences of transitions. Previously, session types have mainly been studied in the context of the π -calculus; instead, our formulation is based on a multithreaded functional language with side-effecting input/output operations. Our typing judgements statically describe dynamic changes in the types of channels, and our function types not only specify argument and result types but also describe changes in channels. We formalize the syntax, semantics and type checking system of our language, and prove subject reduction and runtime type safety theorems.

Creol: A type-safe object-oriented model for distributed concurrent systems

Object-oriented distributed computing is becoming increasingly important for critical infrastructure in society. In standard object-oriented models, objects synchronize on method calls. These models may be criticized in the distributed setting for their tight coupling of communication and synchronization; network delays and instabilities may locally result in much waiting and even deadlock. The Creol model targets distributed objects by a looser coupling of method calls and synchronization. Asynchronous method calls and high-level local control structures allow local computation to adapt to network instability. Object variables are typed by interfaces, so communication with remote objects is independent from their implementation. The inheritance and subtyping relations are distinct in Creol. Interfaces form a subtype hierarchy, whereas multiple inheritance is used for code reuse at the class level. This paper presents the Creol syntax, operational semantics, and type system. It is shown that runtime type errors do not occur for well-typed programs.

Translating Double Dispatch into Single Dispatch

Goals of flexibility and re-usability in typed object-oriented languages suggest the requirement of double dispatch, i.e., the mechanism of dynamically selecting a method not only according to the run-time type of the receiver (single dispatch), but also to the run-time type of the argument. However, many mainstream languages, such as, e.g., C++ and Java, do not provide it, resorting to only single dispatch. In this paper we present a general technique for adding double dispatch as a type-safe language feature, so yielding dynamic overloading and covariant specialization of methods, without extending basic semantics. To this aim we introduce a toy core language, extended to a full form of (non encapsulated) multi methods. Then we define a translation algorithm from multi methods to the core language, that implements double dispatch by using only standard mechanisms of static overloading and single dispatch. As a main feature, our translation preserves type safety, it uses neither RTTI nor type downcasts and does not introduce crucial overhead during method selection.

Effective and Efficient Compilation of Run-Time Generics in Java

After several years from Sun Microsystems' call-for-proposals for adding generics to the Java Programming Language, JDK 1.5 will be finally shipped with a compile-time support for generics. However, differently e.g. from the current implementation of .NET Common Language Runtime, run-time support to generics — also commonly referred to as reification of type parameters — is not provided, leading to a number of well-known inadequacies which might potentially be critical. In this paper we present the EGO compiler (Exact Generics on Demand). This is the result of a project developed in collaboration with Sun Microsystems as an effort to provide run-time generics in a smooth way, without requiring any change on the JVM or on any other run-time support. The core solution is a sophisticated translation of code based on the type-passing style, where run-time type information is automatically created on a by-need basis, limiting as most as possible run-time overhead while retaining interoperability with legacy Java code.We present the main aspects of this development, from basic design to implementation and deployment issues. Many relevant aspects that typical raise when implementing advanced type systems over a mainstream programming language are discussed, shading light to some effective implementation techniques.

A Design for Type-Directed Programming in Java

Type-directed programming is an important and widely used paradigm in the design of software. With this form of programming, an application may analyze type information to determine its behavior. By analyzing the structure of data, many operations, such as serialization, cloning, adaptors and iterators may be defined once, for all types of data. That way, as the program evolves, these operations need not be updated—they will automatically adapt to new data forms. Otherwise, each of these operations must be individually redefined for each type of data, forcing programmers to revisit the same program logic many times during a program's lifetime.The Java language supports type directed programming with the instanceof operator and the Java Reflection API. These mechanisms allow Java programs to depend on the name and structure of the run-time classes of objects. However, the Java mechanisms for type-directed programming are difficult to use. They also do not integrate well with generics, an important new feature of the Java language.In this paper, we describe the design of several expressive new mechanisms for type-directed programming in Java, and show that these mechanisms are sound when included in a language similar to Featherweight Java. Basically, these new mechanisms pattern-match the name and structure of the type parameters of generic code, instead of the run-time classes of objects. Therefore, they naturally integrate with generics and provide strong guarantees about program correctness. As these mechanisms are based on pattern matching, they naturally and succinctly express many operations that depend on type information. Finally, they provide programmers with some degree of protection for their abstractions. Whereas instanceof and reflection can determine the exact run-time type of an object, our mechanisms allow any supertype to be supplied for analysis, hiding its precise structure.

Poly AML

This paper defines Poly AML , a typed functional, aspect-oriented programming language. The main contribution of Poly<SMALL>AML</SMALL> is the seamless integration of polymorphism, run-time type analysis and aspect-oriented programming language features. In particular, Poly<SMALL>AML</SMALL> allows programmers to define type-safe polymorphic advice using pointcuts constructed from a collection of polymorphic join points. Poly<SMALL>AML</SMALL> also comes equipped with a type inference algorithm that conservatively extends Hindley-Milner type inference. To support first-class polymorphic point-cut designators, a crucial feature for developing aspect-oriented profiling or logging libraries, the algorithm blends the conventional Hindley-Milner type inference algorithm with a simple form of local type inference.We give our language operational meaning via a type-directed translation into an expressive type-safe intermediate language. Many complexities of the source language are eliminated in this translation, leading to a modular specification of its semantics. One of the novelties of the intermediate language is the definition of polymorphic labels for marking control-flow points. These labels are organized in a tree structure such that a parent in the tree serves as a representative for all of its children. Type safety requires that the type of each child is less polymorphic than its parent type. Similarly, when a set of labels is assembled as a pointcut, the type of each label is an instance of the type of the pointcut.

CCured: type-safe retrofitting of legacy software

This article describes CCured, a program transformation system that adds type safety guarantees to existing C programs. CCured attempts to verify statically that memory errors cannot occur, and it inserts run-time checks where static verification is insufficient.CCured extends C's type system by separating pointer types according to their usage, and it uses a surprisingly simple type inference algorithm that is able to infer the appropriate pointer kinds for existing C programs. CCured uses physical subtyping to recognize and verify a large number of type casts at compile time. Additional type casts are verified using run-time type information. CCured uses two instrumentation schemes, one that is optimized for performance and one in which metadata is stored in a separate data structure whose shape mirrors that of the original user data. This latter scheme allows instrumented programs to invoke external functions directly on the program's data without the use of a wrapper function.We have used CCured on real-world security-critical network daemons to produce instrumented versions without memory-safety vulnerabilities, and we have found several bugs in these programs. The instrumented code is efficient enough to be used in day-to-day operations.

A simple typed intermediate language for object-oriented languages

Traditional class and object encodings are difficult to use in practical type-preserving compilers because of the complexity of the encodings. We propose a simple typed intermediate language for compiling object-oriented languages and prove its soundness. The key ideas are to preserve lightweight notions of classes and objects instead of compiling them away and to separate name-based subclassing from structure-based subtyping. The language can express standard implementation techniques for both dynamic dispatch and runtime type tests. It has decidable type checking even with subtyping between quantified types with different bounds. Because of its simplicity, the language is a more suitable starting point for a practical type-preserving compiler than traditional encoding techniques.

A Formal Description Of A Type Checking Algorithm.

In type system theory, a program variable can assume a range of values during the execution of a program. In a statically typed language, every expression of the language is assigned a type at compile time. There are many advantages to having a statically type-checked language including provision of earlier information on programming errors, documenting component interfaces, eliminating the need for run-time type checks, and providing extra information that can be used in compiler optimization. In this paper a formal description of a static type checker is presented and used to construct a static type for each expression in an object-oriented language called POOL.

Parametric polymorphism for Java

In spite of years of research toward a solution for the problem of extending Java with parametric polymorphism (genericity) the officially accepted solution already in its beta release allows violation of the Java type system and turns a type safe language into an unsafe one. The run-time type information in this release is incorrect which leads to major problems for the programmers relying on the Java reflective capabilities. We show that there are two basic reasons for these problems. The first one is that the idiom underlying this solution is provably incorrect. The second one is that the problem of extending Java with parametric polymorphism does not have a correct solution unless the Java Virtual Machine is extended to handle it properly. This paper elaborates the subtleties required by a correct implementation technique that includes representation of parametric classes in the standard Java class file format, representation of the instantiated parametric class objects, extensions of the Java Core Reflection to report type information about (instantiated) parametric classes, and the loading techniques required by this solution for extending Java with generics. Previous solutions for this problem are analyzed as well.

FUNCTIONAL PEARL Type-safe cast

Comparing two types for equality is an essential ingredient for an implementation of dynamic types. Once equality has been established, it is safe to cast a value from one type to another. In a language with run-time type analysis, implementing such a procedure is fairly straightforward. Unfortunately, this naive implementation destructs and rebuilds the argument while iterating over its type structure. However, by using higher-order polymorphism, a casting function can treat its argument parametrically. We demonstrate this solution in two frameworks for ad-hoc polymorphism: intensional type analysis and Haskell type classes.

Scalable extensibility via nested inheritance

Inheritance is a useful mechanism for factoring and reusing code. However, it has limitations for building extensible systems. We describe <i>nested inheritance</i>, a mechanism that addresses some of the limitations of ordinary inheritance and other code reuse mechanisms. Using our experience with an extensible compiler framework, we show how nested inheritance can be used to construct highly extensible software frameworks. The essential aspects of nested inheritance are formalized in a simple object-oriented language with an operational semantics and type system. The type system of this language is sound, so no run-time type checking is required to implement it and no run-time type errors can occur. We describe our implementation of nested inheritance as an unobtrusive extension of the Java language, called Jx. Our prototype implementation translates Jx code to ordinary Java code, without duplicating inherited code.

A behavioral type system and its application in Ptolemy II

Abstract. Interface automata [deH01] have been introduced as an interface theory [deH01a] capable of functioning as a behavioral type system. Behavioral type systems describe dynamic properties of components and their compositions. Like traditional (data) type systems, behavioral type systems can be used to check compatibility of components. In this paper, we use interface automata to devise a behavioral type system for Ptolemy II, leveraging the contravariant and optimistic properties of interface automata to achieve behavioral subtyping and polymorphism. Ptolemy II is a software framework supporting concurrent component composition according to diverse models of computation. In this paper, we focus on representing the communication protocols used in component communication within the behavioral type system. In building this type system, we identify two key limitations in interface automata formalisms; we overcome these limitations with two extensions, transient states and projection automata. In addition to static type checking, we also propose to extend the use of interface automata to the on-line reflection of component states and to run-time type checking, which enable dynamic component creation, morphing application structure, and admission control. We discuss the trade-offs in the design of behavioral type systems.

A retrospective on

Dynamically-typed object-oriented languages please programmers, but their lack of static type information penalizes performance. Our new implementation techniques extract static type information from declaration-free programs. Our system compiles several copies of a given procedure, each customized for one receiver type, so that the type of the receiver is bound at compile time. The compiler predicts types that are statically unknown but likely, and inserts run-time type tests to verify its predictions. It splits calls, compiling a copy on each control path, optimized to the specific types on that path. Coupling these new techniques with compile-time message lookup, aggressive procedure inlining, and traditional optimizations has doubled the performance of dynamically-typed object-oriented languages.

Formalization of generics for the .NET common language runtime

We present a formalization of the implementation of generics in the .NET Common Language Runtime (CLR), focusing on two novel aspectsof the implementation: mixed specialization and sharing, and efficient support for run-time types. Some crucial constructs used in the implementation are dictionaries and run-time type representations. We formalize these aspects type-theoretically in a way that corresponds in spirit to the implementation techniques used in practice. Both the techniques and the formalization also help us understand the range of possible implementation techniques for other languages, e.g., ML, especially when additional source language constructs such as run-time types are supported. A useful by-product of this study is a type system for a subset of the polymorphic IL proposed for the .NET CLR.

CCured in the real world

CCured is a program transformation system that adds memory safety guarantees to C programs by verifying statically that memory errors cannot occur and by inserting run-time checks where static verification is insufficient.This paper addresses major usability issues in a previous version of CCured, in which many type casts required the use of pointers whose representation was expensive and incompatible with precompiled libraries. We have extended the CCured type inference algorithm to recognize and verify statically a large number of type casts; this goal is achieved by using physical subtyping and pointers with run-time type information to allow parametric and subtype polymorphism. In addition, we present a new instrumentation scheme that splits CCured's metadata into a separate data structure whose shape mirrors that of the original user data. This scheme allows instrumented programs to invoke external functions directly on the program's data without the use of a wrapper function.With these extensions we were able to use CCured on real-world security-critical network daemons and to produce instrumented versions without memory-safety vulnerabilities.