Recursive Type Generativity Derek Dreyer Toyota Technological Institute at Chicago
[email protected] Abstract 1. Introduction Existential types provide a simple and elegant foundation for un- Recursive modules are one of the most frequently requested exten- derstanding generative abstract data types, of the kind supported by sions to the ML languages. After all, the ability to have cyclic de- the Standard ML module system. However, in attempting to extend pendencies between different files is a feature that is commonplace ML with support for recursive modules, we have found that the tra- in mainstream languages like C and Java. To the novice program- ditional existential account of type generativity does not work well mer especially, it seems very strange that the ML module system in the presence of mutually recursive module definitions. The key should provide such powerful mechanisms for data abstraction and problem is that, in recursive modules, one may wish to define an code reuse as functors and translucent signatures, and yet not allow abstract type in a context where a name for the type already exists, mutually recursive functions and data types to be broken into sepa- but the existential type mechanism does not allow one to do so. rate modules. Certainly, for simple examples of recursive modules, We propose a novel account of recursive type generativity that it is difficult to convincingly argue why ML could not be extended resolves this problem. The basic idea is to separate the act of gener- in some ad hoc way to allow them. However, when one considers ating a name for an abstract type from the act of defining its under- the semantics of a general recursive module mechanism, one runs lying representation.