Notions of program dependency arise in many settings: security, partial evaluation, program slicing, and call-tracking. We argue that there is a central notion of dependency common to these settings that can be captured within a single calculus, the Dependency Core Calculus (DCC), a small extension of Moggi's computational lambda calculus. To establish this thesis, we translate typed calculi for secure information flow, binding-time analysis, slicing, and call-tracking into DCC. The translations help clarify aspects of the source calculi. We also define a semantic model for DCC and use it to give simple proofs of noninterference results for each case.

Run-time type dispatch enables a variety of advanced optimization techniques for polymorphic languages, including tag-free garbage collection, unboxed function arguments, and flattened data structures. However, modern type-preserving compilers transform types between stages of compilation, making type dispatch prohibitively complex at low levels of typed compilation. It is crucial therefore for type analysis at these low levels to refer to the types of previous stages. Unfortunately, no current intermediate language supports this facility. To fill this gap, we present the language LX, which provides a rich language of type constructors supporting type analysis (possibly of previous-stage types) as a programming idiom. This language is quite flexible, supporting a variety of other applications such as analysis of quantified types, analysis with incomplete type information, and type classes. We also show that LX is compatible with a type-erasure semantics. 1 Introduction Type-directed co...

The \pi-calculus is a formalism of computing in which we can compositionally represent dynamics of major programming constructs by decomposing them into a single communication primitive, the name passing. This work reports our experience in using a linear/affine typed \pi-calculus for the analysis and development of type systems of programming languages, focussing on secure information flow analysis. After presenting a basic typed calculus for secrecy, we demonstrate its usage by a sound embedding of the dependency core calculus (DCC) and by the development of a novel type discipline for imperative programs which extends both a secure multi-threaded imperative language by Smith and Volpano and (a call-by-value version of) DCC. In each case, the embedding gives a simple proof of noninterference.

Higher-order languages, such as Haskell, encourage the programmer to build abstractions by composing functions. A good compiler must inline many of these calls to recover an efficiently executable program. In principle, inlining is dead simple: just replace the call of a function by an instance of its body. But any compilerwriter will tell you that inlining is a black art, full of delicate compromises that work together to give good performance without unnecessary code bloat. The purpose of this paper is, therefore, to articulate the key lessons we learned from a full-scale "production" inliner, the one used in the Glasgow Haskell compiler. We focus mainly on the algorithmic aspects, but we also provide some indicative measurements to substantiate the importance of various aspects of the inliner. 1 Introduction One of the trickiest aspects of a compiler for a functional language is the handling of inlining. In a functional-language compiler, inlining subsumes several other optimisatio...

. In lazy functional languages, ? is typically an element of every type. While this provides great flexibility, it also comes at a cost. In this paper we explore the consequences of allowing unpointed types in a lazy functional language like Haskell. We use the type (and class) system to keep track of pointedness, and show the consequences for parametricity and for controlling evaluation order and unboxing. 1 Introduction Ever since Scott and others showed how to use pointed CPOs (i.e. with bottoms) to give meaning to general recursion, both over values (including functions), and over types themselves, functional languages seem to have been wedded to the concept. Languages like Haskell [5] model types by appropriate CPOs and, because non-terminating computations can happen at any type, all the CPOs are pointed. This gives significant flexibility. In particular, values of any type may be defined using recursion. 1.1 Parametricity There are associated costs, however. When reason...

Abstract. In the mainstream categorical approach to typed (total) functional programming, functions with inductive source types defined by primitive recursion are called paramorphisms; the utility of primitive recursion as a scheme for defining functions in programming is well known. We draw attention to the dual notion of apomorphisms — with coinductive target types defined by primitive corecursion and show on examples that primitive corecursion is useful in programming. Key words: typed (total) functional programming, categorical program calculation, (co)datatypes, (co)recursion forms. 1.

We present the call-by-push-value (CBPV) calculus, which decomposes the typed call-by-value (CBV) and typed call-by-name (CBN) paradigms into fine-grain primitives. On the operational side, we give big-step semantics and a stack machine for CBPV, which leads to a straightforward push/pop reading of CBPV programs. On the denotational side, we model CBPV using cpos and, more generally, using algebras for a strong monad. For storage, we present an O’Hearn-style “behaviour semantics” that does not use a monad. We present the translations from CBN and CBV to CBPV. All these translations straightforwardly preserve denotational semantics. We also study their operational properties: simulation and full abstraction. We give an equational theory for CBPV, and show it equivalent to a categorical semantics using monads and algebras. We use this theory to formally compare CBPV to Filinski’s variant of the monadic metalanguage, as well as to Marz’s language SFPL, both of which have essentially the same type structure as CBPV. We also discuss less formally the differences between the CBPV and monadic frameworks.

Cyclic data structures can be tricky to create and manipulate in declarative programming languages. In a declarative setting, a natural way to view cyclic structures is as denoting regular trees, those trees which may be infinite but have only a finite number of distinct subtrees. This paper shows how to implement the unfold (anamorphism) operator in both eager and lazy languages so as to create cyclic structures when the result is a regular tree as opposed to merely infinite lazy structures. The usual fold (catamorphism) operator when used with a strict combining function on any infinite tree yields an undefined result. As an alternative, this paper defines and show how to implement a cycfold operator with more useful semantics when used with a strict function on cyclic structures representing regular trees. This paper also introduces an abstract data type (cycamores) to simplify the use of cyclic structures representing regular trees in both eager and lazy languages. Implementions of cycamores in both SML and Haskell are presented.