Higher-Order Pattern Match Analysis
Summary
In this thesis we attempt to answer the research question:
Can we use a type and effect system in combination with
refinement types to develop a pattern-match analysis for
a non-strict higher-order functional language that is both
performant and precise enough to be of practical use?
In Chapter 1 we present a number of examples to demonstrate
why this is an interesting problem. In Chapter 2 we give a short in-
troduction to the relevant concepts of the research question: higher-
order functional languages and type and effect systems. In Chap-
ter 3 we give an overview of the pattern match analysis we devel-
oped and give a detailed description of the constraint generation
and constraint solving phases in respectively Chapter 4 and Chap-
ter 5. In Chapter 7 we discussion the implementation of the analysis
we have built. We evaluate the effectiveness and limitations of our
analysis in Chapter 6. In Chapter 8 we present work related to our
research question and discuss which aspects of that work are rele-
vant to or different from our proposed system. Finally, in Chapter 9,
we propose a number of directions for further research and future
implementation work to improve the precision and applicability of
the analysis.