Abstract
We propose an algebra F as a framework to talk about polymorphic types. This framework may be useful for studying various type reconstruction problems that arise in type disciplines which employ polymorphic types. We prove that the problem of equational satisfiability in F is NP-complete. As an illustration of how this framework may work we show how to set up equational constraints in F for the problem of type reconstruction for the system of P. Giannini and S. Ronchi Delia Rocca which was introduced in 1991. This gives another, purely algebraic, proof of their decidability result with a clear upper bound for the complexity of this problem.
This work was partly supported by NSF grant CCR-9002253 and by Polish KBN grant No. 2 1192 91 01.
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Tiuryn, J. (1992). Solving equational constraints in polymorphic types. In: Nerode, A., Taitslin, M. (eds) Logical Foundations of Computer Science — Tver '92. LFCS 1992. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 620. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0023900
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0023900
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