Article

Relationally-parametric polymorphic contracts

Authors:

Jacob Matthews,

Robert Bruce Findler, and

Shriram KrishnamurthiAuthors Info & Claims

DLS '07: Proceedings of the 2007 symposium on Dynamic languages

October 2007

Pages 29 - 40

https://doi.org/10.1145/1297081.1297089

Published: 22 October 2007 Publication History

Abstract

The analogy between types and contracts raises the question of how many features of static type systems can be expressed as dynamic contracts. An important feature missing in prior work on contracts is parametricity, as represented by the polymorphic types in languages like Standard ML.

We present a contract counterpart to parametricity. We explore multiple designs for such a system and present one that is simple and incurs minimal execution overhead. We show how to extend the notion of contract blame to our definition. We present a form of inference that can often save programmers from having to explicitly instantiate many parametric contracts. Finally, we present several examples that illustrate how this system mimics the feel and properties of parametric polymorphism in typed languages.

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Cited By

Labrada EToro MTanter É(2022)Gradual System FJournal of the ACM10.1145/355598669:5(1-78)Online publication date: 28-Oct-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3555986
Devriese DPatrignani MPiessens F(2022)Two Parametricities Versus Three Universal TypesACM Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems10.1145/353965744:4(1-43)Online publication date: 21-Sep-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3539657
Greenman BJhala RDillig I(2022)Deep and shallow types for gradual languagesProceedings of the 43rd ACM SIGPLAN International Conference on Programming Language Design and Implementation10.1145/3519939.3523430(580-593)Online publication date: 9-Jun-2022
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Index Terms

Relationally-parametric polymorphic contracts
1. General and reference
  1. Cross-computing tools and techniques
    1. Reliability
    2. Validation
2. Software and its engineering
  1. Software creation and management
    1. Software verification and validation

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Published In

cover image ACM Conferences

DLS '07: Proceedings of the 2007 symposium on Dynamic languages

October 2007

108 pages

ISBN:9781595938688

DOI:10.1145/1297081

Program Chairs:
Pascal Costanza
Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium
,
Robert Hirschfeld
Hasso-Plattner-Institut Potsdam, Germany

Copyright © 2007 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]

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Publication History

Published: 22 October 2007

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OOPSLA07: ACM SIGPLAN Object Oriented Programming Systems and Applications Conference

October 22, 2007

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Cited By

Labrada EToro MTanter É(2022)Gradual System FJournal of the ACM10.1145/355598669:5(1-78)Online publication date: 28-Oct-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3555986
Devriese DPatrignani MPiessens F(2022)Two Parametricities Versus Three Universal TypesACM Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems10.1145/353965744:4(1-43)Online publication date: 21-Sep-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3539657
Greenman BJhala RDillig I(2022)Deep and shallow types for gradual languagesProceedings of the 43rd ACM SIGPLAN International Conference on Programming Language Design and Implementation10.1145/3519939.3523430(580-593)Online publication date: 9-Jun-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3519939.3523430
CAMPORA JCHEN SERWIG MWALKINGSHAW E(2022)Migrating gradual typesJournal of Functional Programming10.1017/S095679682200008932Online publication date: 6-Oct-2022
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0956796822000089
Wadler P(2021)GATE: Gradual Effect TypesLeveraging Applications of Formal Methods, Verification and Validation10.1007/978-3-030-89159-6_21(335-345)Online publication date: 12-Oct-2021
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89159-6_21
Kuhlenschmidt AAlmahallawi DSiek JMcKinley KFisher K(2019)Toward efficient gradual typing for structural types via coercionsProceedings of the 40th ACM SIGPLAN Conference on Programming Language Design and Implementation10.1145/3314221.3314627(517-532)Online publication date: 8-Jun-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3314221.3314627
Toro MLabrada ETanter É(2019)Gradual parametricity, revisitedProceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages10.1145/32903303:POPL(1-30)Online publication date: 2-Jan-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3290330
Williams JMorris JWadler P(2018)The root cause of blame: contracts for intersection and union typesProceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages10.1145/32765042:OOPSLA(1-29)Online publication date: 24-Oct-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3276504
SWORDS CSABRY ATOBIN-HOCHSTADT S(2018)An extended account of contract monitoring strategies as patterns of communicationJournal of Functional Programming10.1017/S095679681800004728Online publication date: 7-Mar-2018
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0956796818000047
Devriese DPatrignani MPiessens F(2017)Parametricity versus the universal typeProceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages10.1145/31581262:POPL(1-23)Online publication date: 27-Dec-2017
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3158126
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