Article

Free access

A type-based compiler for standard ML

Authors:

Andrew W. AppelAuthors Info & Claims

PLDI '95: Proceedings of the ACM SIGPLAN 1995 conference on Programming language design and implementation

Pages 116 - 129

https://doi.org/10.1145/207110.207123

Published: 01 June 1995 Publication History

Abstract

Compile-time type information should be valuable in efficient compilation of statically typed functional languages such as Standard ML. But how should type-directed compilation work in real compilers, and how much performance gain will type-based optimizations yield? In order to support more efficient data representations and gain more experience about type-directed compilation, we have implemented a new type-based middle end and back end for the Standard ML of New Jersey compiler. We describe the basic design of the new compiler, identify a number of practical issues, and then compare the performance of our new compiler with the old non-type-based compiler. Our measurement shows that a combination of several simple type-based optimizations reduces heap allocation by 36%; and improves the already-efficient code generated by the old non-type-based compiler by about 19% on a DECstation 500.

References

[1]

William E. Aitken and John H. Reppy. Abstract value constructors: Symbolic constants for Standard ML. Technical Report TR 92-1290, Department of Computer Science, Cotnell University, June 1992. A shorter version appears in the proceedings of the "ACM SIGPLAN Workshop on ML and its Applications," 1992.

[2]

Andrew W. Appel. A runtlme system. Lisp and Symbolic Computation, 3(4):343-80, 1990.

Digital Library

[3]

Andrew W. Appel. Compiling with Continuations. Cambridge University Press, 1992.

Digital Library

[4]

Andrew W. Appel and Trevor Jim. Continuation-passing, closure-passing style. In Sixteenth A CM Syrup. on Principles of Programming Languages, pages 293-302, New York, 1989. ACM Press.

[5]

Andrew W. Appel and David B. MacQueen. Standard ML of New Jersey. In Martin Wirsing, editor, Third Int'I Syrup. on Prog. Lang. Implementation and Logic Programming, pages 1-13, New York, August 1991. Springer-Verlag.

[6]

Andrew W. Appel and Zhong Shao. Callee-save registers in continuation-passing style. Lisp and Symbolic Cornputatton, 5:189-219, September 1992.

Digital Library

[7]

Nikolaj S. Bjorner. Minimial typing derivations. In A CM SIGPLAN Workshop on ML and its Applications, pages 120- 126, June 1994.

[8]

Craig Chambers. The Design and bnplementation of the SELF Compiler, an Optimizbzg Compiler for Object-Orielzted Programming Languages. PhD thesis, Stanford University, Stanford,California, March 1992. Tech Report STAN-CS- 92-1420.

Digital Library

[9]

Craig Chambers and David Ungar. Customization: Optimizing compiler technology for SELF, a dynamically-typed object-oriented programming language. In Proc. ACM SIG- PLAN '89 Conf. on Prog. Lang. Design and hnplementati~n' pages I46-160, New York, July 1989. ACM Press.

Digital Library

[10]

Luis Damas and Robin Milner. Principal type-schemes for functional programs. In Ninth A CM Symposium on Principles of Programming Languages, pages 207-12, New York, 1982. ACM Press.

Digital Library

[11]

Robert Harper and Mark Lillibridge. A type-theoretic approach to higher-order modules with sharing. In %t'enn' First AnnltalACM S3,mp. on Principles of Prog. Langttages, pages 123-137, New York, Jan 1994. ACM Press.

Digital Library

[12]

Robert Harper and Greg Morrisett. Compiling polymorphlsm using intenslonal type analysis. In T~ventv-second Annlta{ A CM &'mp. on Prtnciples of Prog. La,~lguages, pages 130- 141, New York, Jan 1995. ACM Press.

[13]

Fritz Henglein and Jesper Jorgensen. Formally optimal boxing. In Proc. 21st Annual A CM SIGPLAN-SIGA CT &'rap. on Principles of Programming Languages, pages 213-226. ACM Press, 1994.

Digital Library

[14]

David Kranz. ORBIT.' An opttmtzing compiler for Scheme. PhD thesis, Yale University, New Haw~n, CT, I987.

Digital Library

[15]

Xavier Leroy. Unboxed objects and polymorphic typing. In Nineteenth Annual A CM ~'rap. on Prit,lciples of Prog. Languages, pages 177-188, New York, January I992. ACM Press.

[16]

Xavier Leroy. Manifest types, modules, and separate compilation. In TweJzt~' First Annual A CM Syrup. ot~ Principles of Prog. Languages, pages 109-122, New York, Jan 1994. ACM Press.

[17]

Dawd B. MacQueen and Mads Tofte. A semantics for higher-order functors. In Proc. Ettropea~'z Symposium on Programmhlg (ESOP'94), pages 409-423, April 1994.

Digital Library

[18]

Robin Milner and Mads Torte. Commentary on Standard ML. MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1991.

Digital Library

[19]

Robin Milner, Mads Tofte, and Robert Harper. The Definition of Standard ML. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1990.

Digital Library

[20]

Simon L. Peyton Jones and John Launchbury. Unboxed values as first class cit;zens in a non-strict functional language. In The Fifth International Conference on Functional Programming Languages and Computer A~vhitecture, pages 636-666, New York, August 1991. ACM Press.

Digital Library

[21]

Eigil Poulsen, Representation analysis for efficient implementation of polymorph~sm. Master's thes~s, DiKU, University of Copenhagen, 1993.

[22]

Zhong Shao. Compiling Standard ML for Efficient Execution on Modern Machines. PhD thesis, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, November 1994. Tech Report CS-TR-475-94.

Digital Library

[23]

Zhong Shao and Andrew W. Appel. Space-efficient closure representations. In Proc. 1994 A CM Conf on Lisp and Ftmctional Programming, pages 150-16 I. ACM Press, 1994.

Digital Library

[24]

Guy L. Steele. Rabbit: a compiler for Scheme. Technical Report AI-TR-474, MIT, Cambridge. MA, 1978.

Digital Library

[25]

Mads Torte. Prlnc~pal signatures t br higher-order program modules. In Nineteenth Annual A CM &vmp. on Principles of Prog. Languages, pages 189-199, New York, Jan 1992. ACM Press.

[26]

David M. Ungar. The Design and Evaluation of a High Performance Smatttalk System. MIT Press., Cambridge, MA, 1986.

Digital Library

Cited By

MacQueen DHarper RReppy J(2020)The history of Standard MLProceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages10.1145/33863364:HOPL(1-100)Online publication date: 12-Jun-2020
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3386336
Leite LRocha CKon FMilojicic DMeirelles P(2019)A Survey of DevOps Concepts and ChallengesACM Computing Surveys10.1145/335998152:6(1-35)Online publication date: 14-Nov-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3359981
Drosatos GTasidou AEfraimidis P(2017)Privacy-Enhanced Television Audience MeasurementsACM Transactions on Internet Technology10.1145/300996917:1(1-29)Online publication date: 25-Feb-2017
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3009969
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

A type-based compiler for standard ML
1. Software and its engineering
  1. Software notations and tools
    1. Compilers
    2. General programming languages
      1. Language features
        Data types and structures
        Procedures, functions and subroutines
      2. Language types
2. Theory of computation
  1. Semantics and reasoning
    1. Program constructs
      1. Functional constructs
      2. Type structures

Recommendations

A type-based compiler for standard ML

Compile-time type information should be valuable in efficient compilation of statically typed functional languages such as Standard ML. But how should type-directed compilation work in real compilers, and how much performance gain will type-based ...
Compiling standard ML to Java bytecodes
ICFP '98: Proceedings of the third ACM SIGPLAN international conference on Functional programming

MLJ compiles SML'97 into verifier-compliant Java byte-codes. Its features include type-checked interlanguage working extensions which allow ML and Java code to call each other, automatic recompilation management, compact compiled code and runtime ...
An action compiler targeting Standard ML

We present an action compiler that can be used in connection with an action semantics based compiler generator. Our action compiler produces code with faster execution times than code produced by other action compilers, and for some nontrivial test ...

Comments

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM Conferences

PLDI '95: Proceedings of the ACM SIGPLAN 1995 conference on Programming language design and implementation

June 1995

335 pages

ISBN:0897916972

DOI:10.1145/207110

Chairman:
David W. Wall
Digital—Western Research Laboratory

ACM SIGPLAN Notices Volume 30, Issue 6
June 1995
327 pages
ISSN:0362-1340
EISSN:1558-1160
DOI:10.1145/223428
Editors:
Brent T. Hailpern
IBM T. J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heoghts, NY
,
Richard L. Wexelblat
IRS IS:AO, Washington, DC
Issue’s Table of Contents

Copyright © 1995 ACM.

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]

Sponsors

SIGPLAN: ACM Special Interest Group on Programming Languages

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 01 June 1995

Permissions

Request permissions for this article.

Request Permissions

Check for updates

Qualifiers

Article

Conference

PLDI95

Sponsor:

SIGPLAN

PLDI95: ACM SIGPLAN Conference on Programming Language Design and Implementation

June 18 - 21, 1995

California, La Jolla, USA

Acceptance Rates

PLDI '95 Paper Acceptance Rate 28 of 105 submissions, 27%;

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

Contributors

Other Metrics

View Article Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

112
Total Citations
View Citations
572
Total Downloads

Downloads (Last 12 months)81
Downloads (Last 6 weeks)16

Reflects downloads up to 11 Aug 2024

Other Metrics

View Author Metrics

Citations

Cited By

MacQueen DHarper RReppy J(2020)The history of Standard MLProceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages10.1145/33863364:HOPL(1-100)Online publication date: 12-Jun-2020
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3386336
Leite LRocha CKon FMilojicic DMeirelles P(2019)A Survey of DevOps Concepts and ChallengesACM Computing Surveys10.1145/335998152:6(1-35)Online publication date: 14-Nov-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3359981
Drosatos GTasidou AEfraimidis P(2017)Privacy-Enhanced Television Audience MeasurementsACM Transactions on Internet Technology10.1145/300996917:1(1-29)Online publication date: 25-Feb-2017
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3009969
Kouzapas DPérez JYoshida N(2016)On the Relative Expressiveness of Higher-Order Session ProcessesProceedings of the 25th European Symposium on Programming Languages and Systems - Volume 963210.1007/978-3-662-49498-1_18(446-475)Online publication date: 2-Apr-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/978-3-662-49498-1_18
Ureche VBurmako EOdersky M(2014)Late data layoutACM SIGPLAN Notices10.1145/2714064.266019749:10(397-416)Online publication date: 15-Oct-2014
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2714064.2660197
Ureche VBurmako EOdersky MBlack AMillstein T(2014)Late data layoutProceedings of the 2014 ACM International Conference on Object Oriented Programming Systems Languages & Applications10.1145/2660193.2660197(397-416)Online publication date: 15-Oct-2014
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2660193.2660197
Kranz JSimon AChitil OKing ADanvy O(2014)Structure-Preserving CompilationProceedings of the 16th International Symposium on Principles and Practice of Declarative Programming10.1145/2643135.2643157(187-198)Online publication date: 8-Sep-2014
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2643135.2643157
St-Amour VTobin-Hochstadt SFelleisen M(2012)Optimization coachingACM SIGPLAN Notices10.1145/2398857.238462947:10(163-178)Online publication date: 19-Oct-2012
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2398857.2384629
St-Amour VTobin-Hochstadt SFelleisen MLeavens GDwyer M(2012)Optimization coachingProceedings of the ACM international conference on Object oriented programming systems languages and applications10.1145/2384616.2384629(163-178)Online publication date: 19-Oct-2012
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2384616.2384629
Ahmed ABlume MChakravarty MHu ZDanvy O(2011)An equivalence-preserving CPS translation via multi-language semanticsProceedings of the 16th ACM SIGPLAN international conference on Functional programming10.1145/2034773.2034830(431-444)Online publication date: 19-Sep-2011
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2034773.2034830
Show More Cited By

View Options

View options

PDF

View or Download as a PDF file.

eReader

View online with eReader.

Get Access

Login options

Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.

Full Access

Get this Publication

Media

Figures

Other

Tables

View Table of Contents