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High-level effect handlers in C++

Authors:

Marcos Maroñas Bravo,

Maciej PirógAuthors Info & Claims

Proceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages, Volume 6, Issue OOPSLA2

Article No.: 183, Pages 1639 - 1667

https://doi.org/10.1145/3563445

Published: 31 October 2022 Publication History

Abstract

Effect handlers allow the programmer to implement computational effects, such as custom error handling, various forms of lightweight concurrency, and dynamic binding, inside the programming language. We introduce cpp-effects, a C++ library for effect handlers with a typed high-level, object-oriented interface. We demonstrate that effect handlers can be successfully applied in imperative systems programming languages with manual memory management. Through a collection of examples, we explore how to program effectively with effect handlers in C++, discuss the intricacies and challenges of the implementation, and show that despite its limitations, cpp-effects performance is competitive and in some cases even outperforms state-of-the-art approaches such as C++20 coroutines and the libmprompt library for multiprompt delimited control.

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Cited By

Xie NJohnson DMaclaurin DPaszke A(2024)Parallel Algebraic Effect HandlersProceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages10.1145/36746518:ICFP(756-788)Online publication date: 15-Aug-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3674651
Kidney DYang ZWu N(2024)Algebraic Effects Meet Hoare Logic in Cubical AgdaProceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages10.1145/36328988:POPL(1663-1695)Online publication date: 5-Jan-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3632898
Tang WHillerström DLindley SMorris J(2024)Soundly Handling LinearityProceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages10.1145/36328968:POPL(1600-1628)Online publication date: 5-Jan-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3632896
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

High-level effect handlers in C++
1. Software and its engineering
  1. Software notations and tools
    1. General programming languages
      1. Language features
        Concurrent programming structures
        Control structures
        Coroutines

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Published In

cover image Proceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages

Proceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages Volume 6, Issue OOPSLA2

October 2022

1932 pages

EISSN:2475-1421

DOI:10.1145/3554307

Editor:
Philip Wadler
University of Edinburgh, UK

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Copyright © 2022 Owner/Author.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 31 October 2022

Published in PACMPL Volume 6, Issue OOPSLA2

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Cited By

Xie NJohnson DMaclaurin DPaszke A(2024)Parallel Algebraic Effect HandlersProceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages10.1145/36746518:ICFP(756-788)Online publication date: 15-Aug-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3674651
Kidney DYang ZWu N(2024)Algebraic Effects Meet Hoare Logic in Cubical AgdaProceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages10.1145/36328988:POPL(1663-1695)Online publication date: 5-Jan-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3632898
Tang WHillerström DLindley SMorris J(2024)Soundly Handling LinearityProceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages10.1145/36328968:POPL(1600-1628)Online publication date: 5-Jan-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3632896
Phipps-Costin LRossberg AGuha ALeijen DHillerström DSivaramakrishnan KPretnar MLindley S(2023)Continuing WebAssembly with Effect HandlersProceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages10.1145/36228147:OOPSLA2(460-485)Online publication date: 16-Oct-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3622814

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