article

Type qualifiers as composable language extensions

Authors:

Travis Carlson,

Eric Van WykAuthors Info & Claims

ACM SIGPLAN Notices, Volume 52, Issue 12

Pages 91 - 103

https://doi.org/10.1145/3170492.3136055

Published: 23 October 2017 Publication History

Abstract

This paper reformulates type qualifiers as language extensions that can be automatically and reliably composed. Type qualifiers annotate type expressions to introduce new subtyping relations and are powerful enough to detect many kinds of errors. Type qualifiers, as illustrated in our ableC extensible language framework for C, can introduce rich forms of concrete syntax, can generate dynamic checks on data when static checks are infeasible or not appropriate, and inject code that affects the program's behavior, for example for conversions of data or logging.

ableC language extensions to C are implemented as attribute grammar fragments and provide an expressive mechanism for type qualifier implementations to check for additional errors, e.g. dereferences to pointers not qualified by a "nonnull" qualifier, and report custom error messages. Our approach distinguishes language extension users from developers and provides modular analyses to developers to ensure that when users select a set of extensions to use, they will automatically compose to form a working compiler.

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Cited By

Xiang TLuo JDietl W(2020)Precise inference of expressive units of measurement typesProceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages10.1145/34282104:OOPSLA(1-28)Online publication date: 13-Nov-2020
https://doi.org/10.1145/3428210
Bagheri HKang EMansoor NRothermel GBae D(2020)Synthesis of assurance cases for software certificationProceedings of the ACM/IEEE 42nd International Conference on Software Engineering: New Ideas and Emerging Results10.1145/3377816.3381728(61-64)Online publication date: 27-Jun-2020
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3377816.3381728
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
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3138224

Index Terms

Type qualifiers as composable language extensions
1. Software and its engineering
  1. Software notations and tools
    1. Compilers
      1. Translator writing systems and compiler generators
    2. General programming languages
      1. Language features
        Data types and structures
      2. Language types
        Extensible languages

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Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM SIGPLAN Notices

ACM SIGPLAN Notices Volume 52, Issue 12

GPCE '17

December 2017

258 pages

ISSN:0362-1340

EISSN:1558-1160

DOI:10.1145/3170492

Editor:
Matthew Fluet
Rodchester Institude of Technology

Issue’s Table of Contents

GPCE 2017: Proceedings of the 16th ACM SIGPLAN International Conference on Generative Programming: Concepts and Experiences
October 2017
258 pages
ISBN:9781450355247
DOI:10.1145/3136040
General Chair:
Matthew Flatt
University of Utah, USA
,
Program Chair:
Sebastian Erdweg
TU Delft, Netherlands

Copyright © 2017 ACM.

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 23 October 2017

Published in SIGPLAN Volume 52, Issue 12

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Cited By

Xiang TLuo JDietl W(2020)Precise inference of expressive units of measurement typesProceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages10.1145/34282104:OOPSLA(1-28)Online publication date: 13-Nov-2020
https://doi.org/10.1145/3428210
Bagheri HKang EMansoor NRothermel GBae D(2020)Synthesis of assurance cases for software certificationProceedings of the ACM/IEEE 42nd International Conference on Software Engineering: New Ideas and Emerging Results10.1145/3377816.3381728(61-64)Online publication date: 27-Jun-2020
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3377816.3381728
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
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3138224

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