Paper: Certifying Compilation for a Language with Stack Allocation (at LICS 2005)

Authors: Limin Jia Frances Spalding David Walker Neal Glew

Abstract

This paper describes an assembly-language type system capable of ensuring memory safety in the presence of both heap and stack allocation. The type system uses linear logic and a set of domain-specific predicates to specify invariants about the shape of the store. Part of the model for our logic is a tree of "stack tags" that tracks the evolution of the stack over time. To demonstrate the expressiveness of the type system, we define Micro-CLI, a simple imperative language that captures the essence of stack allocation in the Common Language Infrastructure. We show how to compile well-typed Micro-CLI into well-typed assembly.

BibTeX

  @InProceedings{JiaSpaldingWalkerGl-CertifyingCompilati,
    author = 	 {Limin Jia and Frances Spalding and David Walker and Neal Glew},
    title = 	 {Certifying Compilation for a Language with Stack Allocation},
    booktitle =  {Proceedings of the Twentieth Annual IEEE Symposium on Logic in Computer Science (LICS 2005)},
    year =	 {2005},
    month =	 {June}, 
    pages =      {407--416},
    location =   {Chicago, USA}, 
    publisher =	 {IEEE Computer Society Press}
  }