Type Extension Through Polymorphism

Abstract

A record data type can be extended by addition of more fields. The extended type is a subtype of the original, in that any value of the extended type can be regarded as a value of the original type by ignoring the additional fields. This results in a type hierarchy. Milner [3] has proposed a polymorphic type system. With the Milner approach, the type of a function may contain type variables. This also results in a type hierarchy. In a language with a polymorphic type system, if it is anticipated that a record type will need to be extended, then the record type can be defined to have a dummy extension field. In the parent type, the extension field will have null contents of type void. The type of the extension field can differ with different subtypes. The approach can be extended to allow a type to be subtype of two or more parent types. To a limited extent, this approach can be used in Ada and other languages with generic program units. © 1990, ACM. All rights reserved.