Practical Subtyping for Curry-Style Languages

Abstract

We present a new, syntax-directed framework for Curry-style type systems with subtyping. It supports a rich set of features, and allows for a reasonably simple theory and implementation. The system we consider has sum and product types, universal and existential quantifiers, and inductive and coinductive types. The latter two may carry size invariants that can be used to establish the termination of recursive programs. For example, the termination of quicksort can be derived by showing that partitioning a list does not increase its size. The system deals with complex programs involving mixed induction and coinduction, or even mixed polymorphism and (co-)induction. One of the key ideas is to separate the notion of size from recursion. We do not check the termination of programs directly, but rather show that their (circular) typing proofs are well-founded. Termination is then obtained using a standard (semantic) normalisation proof. To demonstrate the practicality of the system, we provide an implementation accepting all the examples discussed in the article.