Dependent Types for Low-Level Programming

In this paper, we describe the key principles of a dependent type system for low-level imperative languages. The major contributions of this work are (1) a sound type system that combines dependent types and mutation for variables and for heap-allocated structures in a more flexible way than before and (2) a technique for automatically inferring dependent types for local variables. We have applied these general principles to design Deputy, a dependent type system for C that allows the user to describe bounded pointers and tagged unions. Deputy has been used to annotate and check a number of real-world C programs.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2007
• Where: ESOP
• Authors: Jeremy Condit, Matthew Harren, Zachary R. Anderson, David Gay, George C. Necula
• Keywords: Dependent Type, ESOP 2007, Low-level Imperative Languages, Programming Languages, Type System