Local type inference
- 1 January 2000
- journal article
- Published by Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) in ACM Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems
- Vol. 22 (1), 1-44
- https://doi.org/10.1145/345099.345100
Abstract
We study two partial type inference methods for a language combining subtyping and impredicative polymorphism. Both methods are local in the sense that missing annotations are recovered using only information from adjacent nodes in the syntax tree, without long-distance constraints such as unification variables. One method infers type arguments in polymorphic applications using a local constraint solver. The other infers annotations on bound variables in function abstractions by propagating type constraints downward from enclosing application nodes. We motivate our design choices by a statistical analysis of the uses of type inference in a sizable body of existing ML code.This publication has 19 references indexed in Scilit: