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Implementing type classes

Authors:

John Peterson,

Mark JonesAuthors Info & Claims

PLDI '93: Proceedings of the ACM SIGPLAN 1993 conference on Programming language design and implementation

Pages 227 - 236

https://doi.org/10.1145/155090.155112

Published: 01 June 1993 Publication History

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Abstract

We describe the implementation of a type checker for the functional programming language Haskell that supports the use of type classes. This extends the type system of ML to support overloading (ad-hoc polymorphism) and can be used to implement features such as equality types and numeric overloading in a simple and general way.

The theory of type classes is well understood, but the practical issues involved in the implementation of such systems have not received a great deal of attention. In addition to the basic type checking algorithm, an implmenentation of type classes also requires some form of program transformation. In all current Haskell compilers this takes the form of dictionary conversion, using functions as hidden parameters to overloaded values. We present efficient techniques for type checking and dictionary conversion. A number of optimizations and extensions to the basic type class sytems are also described.

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Cited By

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Elsman M(2024)Double-Ended Bit-Stealing for Algebraic Data TypesProceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages10.1145/36746288:ICFP(88-120)Online publication date: 15-Aug-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3674628
Elsman M(2024)Explicit Effects and Effect Constraints in ReMLProceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages10.1145/36329218:POPL(2370-2394)Online publication date: 5-Jan-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3632921
McDonell TMeredith JKeller GPolikarpova N(2022)Embedded pattern matchingProceedings of the 15th ACM SIGPLAN International Haskell Symposium10.1145/3546189.3549917(123-136)Online publication date: 6-Sep-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3546189.3549917
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Index Terms

Implementing type classes
1. Software and its engineering
  1. Software notations and tools
    1. Compilers
    2. General programming languages
      1. Language types
2. Theory of computation
  1. Semantics and reasoning
    1. Program constructs
      1. Type structures

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We study the type inference problem for a system with type classes as in the functional programming language Haskell. Type classes are an extension of ML-style polymorphism with overloading. We generalize Milner's work on polymorphism by introducing a ...
Implementing type classes

We describe the implementation of a type checker for the functional programming language Haskell that supports the use of type classes. This extends the type system of ML to support overloading (ad-hoc polymorphism) and can be used to implement features ...
A parametric extension of Haskell's type classes

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Published In

PLDI '93: Proceedings of the ACM SIGPLAN 1993 conference on Programming language design and implementation

August 1993

313 pages

ISBN:0897915984

DOI:10.1145/155090

Editor:
Robert Cartwright
Rice Univ., Houston, TX

ACM SIGPLAN Notices Volume 28, Issue 6
June 1993
313 pages
ISSN:0362-1340
EISSN:1558-1160
DOI:10.1145/173262
Editor:
Richard Wexelblat
IDA/CSED, Alexandria, VA
Issue’s Table of Contents

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 01 June 1993

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PLDI93

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SIGPLAN

PLDI93: ACM SIGPLAN Conference on Programming Languages Design and Implementation

June 21 - 25, 1993

New Mexico, Albuquerque, USA

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Overall Acceptance Rate 406 of 2,067 submissions, 20%

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Cited By

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Elsman M(2024)Double-Ended Bit-Stealing for Algebraic Data TypesProceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages10.1145/36746288:ICFP(88-120)Online publication date: 15-Aug-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3674628
Elsman M(2024)Explicit Effects and Effect Constraints in ReMLProceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages10.1145/36329218:POPL(2370-2394)Online publication date: 5-Jan-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3632921
McDonell TMeredith JKeller GPolikarpova N(2022)Embedded pattern matchingProceedings of the 15th ACM SIGPLAN International Haskell Symposium10.1145/3546189.3549917(123-136)Online publication date: 6-Sep-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3546189.3549917
Hovgaard AHenriksen TElsman M(2019)High-Performance Defunctionalisation in FutharkTrends in Functional Programming10.1007/978-3-030-18506-0_7(136-156)Online publication date: 24-Apr-2019
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-18506-0_7
Ohori AUeno KMima H(2018)Finitary polymorphism for optimizing type-directed compilationProceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages10.1145/32367762:ICFP(1-29)Online publication date: 30-Jul-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3236776
McDonell TZakian TCimini MNewton R(2016)Ghostbuster: a tool for simplifying and converting GADTsACM SIGPLAN Notices10.1145/3022670.295191451:9(338-350)Online publication date: 4-Sep-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3022670.2951914
McDonell TZakian TCimini MNewton RGarrigue JKeller GSumii E(2016)Ghostbuster: a tool for simplifying and converting GADTsProceedings of the 21st ACM SIGPLAN International Conference on Functional Programming10.1145/2951913.2951914(338-350)Online publication date: 4-Sep-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2951913.2951914
McDonell TChakravarty MGrover VNewton R(2015)Type-safe runtime code generation: accelerate to LLVMACM SIGPLAN Notices10.1145/2887747.280431350:12(201-212)Online publication date: 30-Aug-2015
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2887747.2804313
McDonell TChakravarty MGrover VNewton RLippmeier B(2015)Type-safe runtime code generation: accelerate to LLVMProceedings of the 2015 ACM SIGPLAN Symposium on Haskell10.1145/2804302.2804313(201-212)Online publication date: 30-Aug-2015
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2804302.2804313
Alkemade TJeuring J(2015)Type Class Instances for Type-Level Lambdas in HaskellRevised Selected Papers of the 16th International Symposium on Trends in Functional Programming - Volume 954710.1007/978-3-319-39110-6_4(60-84)Online publication date: 3-Jun-2015
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/978-3-319-39110-6_4
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