We present a type theory for higher-order modules that accounts for many central issues in module system design, including translucency, applicativity, generativity, and modules as first-class values. Our type system harmonizes design elements from previous work, resulting in a simple, economical account of modular programming. The main unifying principle is the treatment of abstraction mechanisms as computational effects. Our language is the first to provide a complete and practical formalization of all of these critical issues in module system design.

The programming language Standard ML is an amalgam of two, largely orthogonal, languages. The Core language expresses details of algorithms and data structures. The Modules language expresses the modular architecture of a software system. Both languages are statically typed, with their static and dynamic semantics specified by a formal definition.

This article introduces the verification tool Why. This tool produces verification conditions from annotated programs given as input.

Mixins are modules in which some components are deferred , i.e. their definition has to be provided by another module. Moreover, differently from parameterized modules (like ML functors), mixin modules can be mutually dependent and their composition supports redefinition of components (overriding). In this paper, we present a formal model of mixins and their basic composition operators. These operators can be viewed as a kernel language with clean semantics in which to express more complex operators of existing modular languages, including variants of inheritance in object oriented programming. Our formal model is given in an "institution independent" way, i.e. is parameterized by the semantic framework modeling the underlying core language. Introduction In object oriented languages, the definition of an heir class H from a parent class P takes usually the form H = extend P by M , where M denotes a collection of definitions of components (typically methods) which are either new, or re...

Higher-order modules are very effective in structuring large programs and defining generic, reusable software components. Unfortunately, many compilation techniques for the core languages do not work across the module boundaries. As a result, few optimizing compilers support these module facilities well. This paper exploits the semantic property of ML-style modules to support efficient cross-module compilation. More specifically, we present a type-directed translation of the MacQueen-Tofte higher-order modules into a predicative variant of the polymorphic -calculus F! . Because modules can be compiled in the same way as ordinary polymorphic functions, standard type-based optimizations such as representation analysis immediately carry over to the module languages. We further show that the full-transparency property of the MacQueen-Tofte system yields a near optimal cross-module compilation framework. By propagating various static information through the module boundaries, many static pr...

Abstract. We present a module calculus for studying a simple model of link-time compilation. The calculus is stratified into a term calculus, a core module calculus, and a linking calculus. At each level, we show that the calculus enjoys a computational soundness property: iftwo terms are equivalent in the calculus, then they have the same outcome in a smallstep operational semantics. This implies that any module transformation justified by the calculus is meaning preserving. This result is interesting because recursive module bindings thwart confluence at two levels ofour calculus, and prohibit application ofthe traditional technique for showing computational soundness, which requires confluence. We introduce a new technique, based on properties we call lift and project, thatusesa weaker notion of confluence with respect to evaluation to establish computational soundness for our module calculus. We also introduce the weak distributivity property for a transformation T operating on modules D1 and D2 linked by ⊕: T (D1 ⊕ D2) =T (T (D1) ⊕ T (D2)). We argue that this property finds promising candidates for link-time optimizations. 1

As probabilistic computations play an increasing role in solving various problems, researchers have designed probabilistic languages which treat probability distributions as primitive datatypes. Most probabilistic languages, however, focus only on discrete distributions and have limited expressive power. This paper presents a probabilistic language, called λ○, whose expressive power is beyond discrete distributions. Rich expressiveness of λ ○ is due to its use of sampling functions, i.e., mappings from the unit interval (0.0, 1.0] to probability domains, in specifying probability distributions. As such, λ ○ enables programmers to formally express and reason about sampling methods developed in simulation theory. The use of λ ○ is demonstrated with three applications in robotics: robot localization, people tracking, and robotic mapping. All experiments have been carried out with real robots.

Mixins are modules which may contain deferred components, i.e. components not defined in the module itself, and allow definitions to be overridden. We give an axiomatic definition of a set of operations for mixin combination, corresponding to a variety of constructs existing in programming languages (merge, hiding, overriding, functional composition, ...). In particular, we show that they can all be expressed in terms of three primitive operations (namely, sum, reduct and freeze), which are characterized by a small set of axioms. We show that the given axiomatization is sound w.r.t. to a model provided in some preceding work. Finally, we prove the existence of a normal form for mixin expressions.

This paper presents the formal verication with the Coq proof assistant of several applicative data structures implementing nite sets. These implementations are parameterized by an ordered type for the elements, using functors from the ML module system. The verication follows closely this scheme, using the newly Coq module system.

The ML module system is useful for building large-scale programs. The programmer can factor programs into nested and parameterized modules, and can control abstraction with signatures. Yet ML prohibits recursion between modules. As a result of this constraint, the programmer may have to consolidate conceptually separate components into a single module, intruding on modular programming. Introducing recursive modules is a natural way out of this predicament. Existing proposals, however, vary in expressiveness and verbosity. In this paper, we propose a type system for recursive modules, which can infer their signatures. Opaque signatures can also be given explicitly, to provide type abstraction either inside or outside the recursion. The type system is provably decidable, and is sound for a call-by-value semantics. We also gives a solution to the expression problem, in support of our design choices. 1 1