On subtyping and matching

  • Authors:
  • Martín Abadi;Luca Cardelli

  • Affiliations:
  • Digital Equipment, Palo Alto, CA;Digital Equipment, Palo Alto, CA

  • Venue:
  • ACM Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems (TOPLAS)
  • Year:
  • 1996

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Abstract

A relation between recursive object types, called matching, has been proposed as a generalization of subtyping. Unlike subtyping, matching does not support subsumption, but it does support inheritance of binary methods. We argue that matching is a good idea, but that it should not be regarded as a form of F-bounded subtyping (as was originally intended). We show that a new interpretation of matching as higher-order subtyping has better properties. Matching turns out to be a third-order construction, possibly the only one to have been proposed for general use in programming.