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A Scala Type Checker Library

A Scala library providing means to derive type checkers from constraint-based inference rules:

  • A small embedded DSL to define constraint-based inference rules.
  • A framework to define strategies to collect and solve constraints from a deduction tree.
  • A set of basic, predefined strategies for rule instantiation (e.g. reflection-based), deduction tree traversal (e.g. depth-first, breadth-first, bottom-up, top-down), and constraint solving (e.g. linear order).

This project builds on and evolves the concepts presented in Deriving Type Checkers (Technical Report 2012–09, TU Berlin, 2012).

Installation

This project can be built with sbt version 0.13.18.

To compile the sources and execute all tests, run:

sbt compile test

To Package the library, run:

sbt package

This step will create jar files for the library in the core directory as well as for all examples in the examples directory.

Example

Define abstract syntax for a simply-typed lambda calculus.

import typechecklib.Syntax.Ide

abstract class Term
case class Var(ide: Ide) extends Term
case class Abs(x: Var, e: Term) extends Term
case class App(f: Term, e:Term) extends Term

Define constraint-based inference rules for a simply-typed lambda calculus.

import typechecklib.Rules._
import typechecklib.Types._
import typechecklib.Constraints._

/* Parent type for all type rules */
sealed trait SimpleLambdaRules


/*
 * Typing rule for variable lookup:
 * 
 *         T = Γ(x)
 *       ----------- (Var)
 *        Γ ⊢ x : T
 */
case class VarRule(ctx: Context, x: Var, t: Type) extends Axiom with SimpleLambdaRules {
    ctx ⊢ x <:> t | t =:= ctx(x)

    override val name = "Var"
}


/*
 * Typing rule for lambda abstraction:
 * 
 *      Γ,x:T1 ⊢ e : T2       T = T1 -> T2
 *     ------------------------------------ (Abs)
 *                Γ ⊢ λ x.e : T
 */
case class AbsRule(ctx: Context, abs: Abs, t: Type) extends Rule with SimpleLambdaRules {
    val t1 = TypeVariable()
    val t2 = TypeVariable()
    val newCtx = ctx + (abs.x -> t1)

    newCtx ⊢ abs.e <:> t2 ==> 
    ctx ⊢ abs <:> t | (t =:= t1 --> t2)

    override  val name = "Abs"
}


/*
 * Typing rule for application.
 * 
 *    Γ ⊢ f : T1     Γ ⊢ e : T2     T1 = T2 -> T
 *   -------------------------------------------- (App)
 *                  Γ ⊢ (f) e : T
 */
case class AppRule(ctx: Context, app: App, t: Type) extends Rule with SimpleLambdaRules {
    val t1 = TypeVariable()
    val t2 = TypeVariable()

    List(ctx ⊢ app.f <:> t1, ctx ⊢ app.e <:> t2 ) ==> 
    ctx ⊢ app <:> t | (t1 =:= t2 --> t)

    override val name = "App"
}

Derive a type checker from the given inference rules with the help of the library.

import typechecklib._

object LambdaTypeChecker extends TypeChecker with ReflectionBasedConstraintGeneration with DepthFirstPreOrder with LinearConstraintSolver {
    import scala.reflect.runtime.universe.typeOf

    val rules = List(typeOf[VarRule], typeOf[AbsRule], typeOf[AppRule])
}

As part of this library a type checker is composed of three key traits:

  • The trait ConstraintGeneration defining how the given typing rules are instantiated to build deduction tree.
  • The trait TreeTraversal defining how a deduction tree labeled with constraints should be traversed to collect all constraints.
  • The trait ConstraintSolver defining the strategy how the collected constraints should be solved (e.g. in what order).

In the simply-typed lambda calculus example the type checker uses a reflection-based rule instantiation mechanism, traverses the deduction tree using a pre-order depth-first strategy, and solves the collected constraints in linear order.