Polymorphic components for monomorphic languages

Author

Grosch, Franz-Josef ; Snelting, Gregor

Author_Institution

Tech. Univ. Braunschweig, Germany

fYear

1993

fDate

24-26 Mar 1993

Firstpage

47

Lastpage

55

Abstract

Most procedural programming languages, due to their restricted type systems, do not allow for polymorphic software components in the style of functional languages, although polymorphism greatly increases the potential for component reuse, while guaranteeing the security of strong typing. It is shown how to obtain polymorphic software components for ordinary languages like C or Modula-2. The method is based on generic type inference in a software component library. The source of polymorphism is the use of free (undeclared) names in a component. The analysis algorithm will infer signature schemes, which are analogous to type schemes in functional languages. Signature schemes can be used to check library consistency and make it possible to retrieve components by usage patterns

Keywords

data structures; functional programming; high level languages; software reusability; subroutines; C; Modula-2; analysis algorithm; component reuse; functional languages; generic type inference; library consistency; monomorphic languages; polymorphic software components; polymorphism; procedural programming languages; restricted type systems; signature schemes; software component library; strong typing; usage patterns; Algorithm design and analysis; Computer languages; Error correction; Inference algorithms; Programming profession; Runtime; Security; Software algorithms; Software libraries; Software reusability;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Software Reusability, 1993. Proceedings Advances in Software Reuse., Selected Papers from the Second International Workshop on

Conference_Location

Lucca

Print_ISBN

0-8186-3130-9

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/ASR.1993.291718

Filename

291718