A model inference system for generic specification with application to code sharing

Abstract

This paper presents a model inference system to control instantiation of generic modules. Generic parameters are specified by properties which represent classes of modules sharing some common features. Just as type checking consists in verifying that an expression is well typed, model checking allows to detect whether a (possibly generic) instantiation of a generic module is valid, i.e. whether the instantiation module is a model of the parameterizing property. Equality of instances can be derived from a canonical representation of modules. At last, we show how the code of generic modules can be shared for all instances of modules.