Article

Safely Composable Type-Specific Languages

Authors:

Darya Kurilova,

Benjamin Chung,

Jonathan AldrichAuthors Info & Claims

Proceedings of the 28th European Conference on ECOOP 2014 --- Object-Oriented Programming - Volume 8586

Pages 105 - 130

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-44202-9_5

Published: 01 August 2014 Publication History

Abstract

Programming languages often include specialized syntax for common datatypes e.g. lists and some also build in support for specific specialized datatypes e.g. regular expressions, but user-defined types must use general-purpose syntax. Frustration with this causes developers to use strings, rather than structured data, with alarming frequency, leading to correctness, performance, security, and usability issues. Allowing library providers to modularly extend a language with new syntax could help address these issues. Unfortunately, prior mechanisms either limit expressiveness or are not safely composable: individually unambiguous extensions can still cause ambiguities when used together. We introduce type-specific languages TSLs: logic associated with a type that determines how the bodies of generic literals, able to contain arbitrary syntax, are parsed and elaborated, hygienically. The TSL for a type is invoked only when a literal appears where a term of that type is expected, guaranteeing non-interference. We give evidence supporting the applicability of this approach and formally specify it with a bidirectionally typed elaboration semantics for the Wyvern programming language.

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Cited By

Flatt MAllred TAngle NDe Gabrielle SFindler RFirth JGopinathan KGreenman BKasivajhula SKnauth AMcCarthy JPhillips SPorncharoenwase SSøgaard JTobin-Hochstadt S(2023)Rhombus: A New Spin on Macros without All the ParenthesesProceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages10.1145/36228187:OOPSLA2(574-603)Online publication date: 16-Oct-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3622818
Fish JMelicher DAldrich JKell SVerna D(2020)A case study in language-based security: building an I/O library for WyvernProceedings of the 2020 ACM SIGPLAN International Symposium on New Ideas, New Paradigms, and Reflections on Programming and Software10.1145/3426428.3426913(34-47)Online publication date: 18-Nov-2020
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3426428.3426913
Mackay JPotanin AAldrich JGroves L(2020)Syntactically Restricting Bounded Polymorphism for Decidable SubtypingProgramming Languages and Systems10.1007/978-3-030-64437-6_7(125-144)Online publication date: 30-Nov-2020
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/978-3-030-64437-6_7
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Published In

cover image Guide Proceedings

Proceedings of the 28th European Conference on ECOOP 2014 --- Object-Oriented Programming - Volume 8586

August 2014

696 pages

ISBN:9783662442012

Editor:
Richard Jones
School of Computing, University of Kent, Canterbury, UK

Publisher

Springer-Verlag

Berlin, Heidelberg

Publication History

Published: 01 August 2014

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Cited By

Flatt MAllred TAngle NDe Gabrielle SFindler RFirth JGopinathan KGreenman BKasivajhula SKnauth AMcCarthy JPhillips SPorncharoenwase SSøgaard JTobin-Hochstadt S(2023)Rhombus: A New Spin on Macros without All the ParenthesesProceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages10.1145/36228187:OOPSLA2(574-603)Online publication date: 16-Oct-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3622818
Fish JMelicher DAldrich JKell SVerna D(2020)A case study in language-based security: building an I/O library for WyvernProceedings of the 2020 ACM SIGPLAN International Symposium on New Ideas, New Paradigms, and Reflections on Programming and Software10.1145/3426428.3426913(34-47)Online publication date: 18-Nov-2020
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3426428.3426913
Mackay JPotanin AAldrich JGroves L(2020)Syntactically Restricting Bounded Polymorphism for Decidable SubtypingProgramming Languages and Systems10.1007/978-3-030-64437-6_7(125-144)Online publication date: 30-Nov-2020
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/978-3-030-64437-6_7
Chiba SSchaefer IReichenbach CStorm T(2019)Foreign language interfaces by code migrationProceedings of the 18th ACM SIGPLAN International Conference on Generative Programming: Concepts and Experiences10.1145/3357765.3359521(1-13)Online publication date: 21-Oct-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3357765.3359521
Palmkvist VBroman D(2019)Creating Domain-Specific Languages by Composing Syntactical ConstructsPractical Aspects of Declarative Languages10.1007/978-3-030-05998-9_12(187-203)Online publication date: 14-Jan-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/978-3-030-05998-9_12
Pombrio JKrishnamurthi S(2018)Inferring type rules for syntactic sugarACM SIGPLAN Notices10.1145/3296979.319239853:4(812-825)Online publication date: 11-Jun-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3296979.3192398
Omar CAldrich J(2018)Reasonably programmable literal notationProceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages10.1145/32368012:ICFP(1-32)Online publication date: 30-Jul-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3236801
Pombrio JKrishnamurthi SFoster JGrossman D(2018)Inferring type rules for syntactic sugarProceedings of the 39th ACM SIGPLAN Conference on Programming Language Design and Implementation10.1145/3192366.3192398(812-825)Online publication date: 11-Jun-2018
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Carlson TVan Wyk E(2017)Type qualifiers as composable language extensionsACM SIGPLAN Notices10.1145/3170492.313605552:12(91-103)Online publication date: 23-Oct-2017
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Kaminski TKramer LCarlson TVan Wyk E(2017)Reliable and automatic composition of language extensions to C: the ableC extensible language frameworkProceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages10.1145/31382241:OOPSLA(1-29)Online publication date: 12-Oct-2017
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