Principal type schemes for functional programs with overloading and subtyping Article

Smith, GS. (1994). Principal type schemes for functional programs with overloading and subtyping . Science of Computer Programming, 23(2-3), 197-226. 10.1016/0167-6423(94)00020-4

cited authors

  • Smith, GS

abstract

  • We show how the Hindley/Milner polymorphic type system can be extended to incorporate overloading and subtyping. Our approach is to attach constraints to quantified types in order to restrict the allowed instantiations of type variables. We present an algorithm for inferring principal types and prove its soundness and completeness. We find that it is necessary in practice to simplify the inferred types, and we describe techniques for type simplification that involve shape unification, strongly connected components, transitive reduction, and the monotonicities of type formulas. © 1994.

authors

publication date

  • January 1, 1994

published in

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

start page

  • 197

end page

  • 226

volume

  • 23

issue

  • 2-3