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Subtyping for session types in the pi calculus

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Abstract

Extending the pi calculus with the session types proposed by Honda et al. allows high-level specifications of structured patterns of communication, such as client-server protocols, to be expressed as types and verified by static typechecking. We define a notion of subtyping for session types, which allows protocol specifications to be extended in order to describe richer behaviour; for example, an implemented server can be refined without invalidating type-correctness of an overall system. We formalize the syntax, operational semantics and typing rules of an extended pi calculus, prove that typability guarantees absence of run-time communication errors, and show that the typing rules can be transformed into a practical typechecking algorithm.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computing Science, University of Glasgow, G12 8QQ, UK

    Simon Gay

  2. Department of Computer Science, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK

    Malcolm Hole

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  1. Simon Gay
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  2. Malcolm Hole
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Correspondence to Simon Gay.

Additional information

Malcolm Hole died on 28th February 2004, a few weeks after the original submission of this paper.

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Gay, S., Hole, M. Subtyping for session types in the pi calculus. Acta Informatica 42, 191–225 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00236-005-0177-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00236-005-0177-z

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