Nominal type system

In computer science, a type system is nominal, nominative, or name-based if compatibility and equivalence of data types is determined by explicit declarations and/or the name of the types. Nominal systems are used to determine if types are equivalent, as well as if a type is a subtype of another. Nominal type systems contrast with structural systems, where comparisons are based on the structure of the types in question and do not require explicit declarations. Nominal typing Nominal typing means that two variables are type-compatible if and only if their declarations name the same type. For example, in C, two struct types with different names in the same translation unit are never considered compatible, even if they have identical field declarations. However, C also allows a typedef declaration, which introduces an alias for an existing type. These are merely syntactical and do not differentiate the type from its alias for the purpose of type checking. This feature, pres

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A Nominal Theory of Objects with Dependent Types

Vincent Cremet, Martin Odersky, Matthias Zenger

We design and study newObj, a calculus and dependent type system forobjects and classes which can have types as members. Type members canbe aliases, abstract types, or new types. The type system can modelthe essential concepts of Java's inner classes as well as virtual typesand family polymorphism found in BETA or gbeta. It can also model mostconcepts of SML-style module systems, including sharing constraintsand higher-order functors, but excluding applicative functors.The type system can thus be used as a basis for unifying conceptsthat so far existed in parallel in advanced object systems and inmodule systems. The technical report presents results on confluenceof the calculus, soundness of the type system, and undecidability oftype checking.

2002

Type-Safe Prototype-Based Component Evolution

Matthias Zenger

Component-based programming is currently carried out us- ing mainstream object-oriented languages. These languages have to be used in a highly disciplined way to guarantee flexible component composition and extensibility. This paper investigates abstractions for component-oriented programming on the programming language level. We propose a simple prototype-based model for first-class components on top of a class-based object-oriented language. The model is formalized as an extension of Featherweight Java. Our calculus includes a minimal set of primitives to dynamically build, extend, and compose software components, while supporting features like explicit context dependen- cies, late composition, unanticipated component extensibility, and strong encapsulation. We present a type system for our calculus that ensures type-safe component definition, composition, and evolution.

Springer Berlin Heidelberg2002

Type-Safe Prototype-Based Component Evolution

Matthias Zenger

Component-based programming is currently carried out using mainstream object-oriented languages. These languages have to be used in a highly disciplined way to guarantee flexible component composition and extensibility. This paper investigates abstractions for component-oriented programming on the programming language level. We propose a simple prototype-based model for first-class components on top of a class-based object-oriented language. The model is formalized as an extension of Featherweight Java. Our calculus includes a minimal set of primitives to dynamically build, extend, and compose software components, while supporting features like explicit context dependencies, late composition, unanticipated component extensibility, and strong encapsulation. We present a type system for our calculus that ensures type-safe component definition, composition, and evolution.

2002

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