Automatic Generation of Object-Oriented Type Checkers

Abstract

Type systems are aimed at preventing programming language constructions from having wrong behavior at runtime. Different formalisms are used to guarantee that a type system is well defined. However, the type systems implemented in commercial language processors (type checkers) do not commonly use tools that translate these formalisms into code. We propose a framework to facilitate the implementation of object-oriented type checkers, following widespread design patterns. A tool generates the specific implementation of a type checker, receiving a specification of the type system as its input. The generated code interacts with an API, accessible from the rest of the language processor implementation.