Haskell-style Overloading is NP Hard
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Authors
Volpano, Dennis
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1994-05
Date
May 1994.
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Abstract
Extensions of the ML type system, based on constrained type schemes, have been proposed for languages with overloading. Type inference in these systems requires solving the following satisfiability problems. Given a set of type assumptions C over finite types, and a type basis A, is there is a substitution S that satisfies C in that A 1- CS is derivable? Under arbitrary overloading, the problem is undecidable. Haskell limits overloading to a form similar to that proposed by Keas called parametric overloading. We formally characterize parametric overloading in terms of a regular tree language and prove that although decidable, satisfiability is NP-hard when overloading is parametric.
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The article of record as published may be found at http://dx.doi.org/
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Computer Science (CS)
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Proceedings 1994 Int'l Conference on Computer Languages, Toulouse, France, pp. 88-94, May 1994.
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This publication is a work of the U.S. Government as defined in Title 17, United States Code, Section 101. Copyright protection is not available for this work in the United States.