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Balloon types: Controlling sharing of state in data types

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ECOOP'97 — Object-Oriented Programming (ECOOP 1997)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 1241))

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Abstract

Current data abstraction mechanisms are not adequate to control sharing of state in the general case involving objects in linked structures. The pervading possibility of sharing is a source of errors and an obstacle to language implementation techniques.

We present a general extension to programming languages which makes the ability to share state a first class property of a data type, resolving a long-standing flaw in existing data abstraction mechanisms.

Balloon types enforce a strong form of encapsulation: no state reachable (directly or transitively) by a balloon object is referenced by any external object. Syntactic simplicity is achieved by relying on a non-trivial static analysis as the checking mechanism.

Balloon types are applicable in a wide range of areas such as program transformation, memory management and distributed systems. They are the key to obtaining self-contained composite objects, truly opaque data abstractions and value types—important concepts for the development of large scale, provably correct programs.

On leave from Departamento de Informática, Universidade do Minho, Portugal. Partially supported by JNICT—PRAXIS XXI grant BD-3390-94.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computing, Imperial College, SW7 2BZ, London

    Paulo Sérgio Almeida

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  1. Paulo Sérgio Almeida
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Mehmet Akşit Satoshi Matsuoka

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© 1997 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Almeida, P.S. (1997). Balloon types: Controlling sharing of state in data types. In: Akşit, M., Matsuoka, S. (eds) ECOOP'97 — Object-Oriented Programming. ECOOP 1997. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 1241. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0053373

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0053373

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-63089-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-69127-3

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