Polymorphic Endpoint Types for Copyless Message Passing

TL;DR

This paper introduces PolySing#, a calculus with a polymorphic endpoint type system for copyless message passing, ensuring process safety and preventing memory leaks in concurrent systems.

Contribution

It develops a linear polymorphic type system for process interaction, addressing memory leak issues in copyless message passing models.

Findings

Well-typed processes are free from faults, leaks, and communication errors.

A condition on endpoint types prevents memory leaks.

The type system enhances safety in concurrent message-passing systems.

Abstract

We present PolySing#, a calculus that models process interaction based on copyless message passing, in the style of Singularity OS. We equip the calculus with a type system that accommodates polymorphic endpoint types, which are a variant of polymorphic session types, and we show that well-typed processes are free from faults, leaks, and communication errors. The type system is essentially linear, although linearity alone may leave room for scenarios where well-typed processes leak memory. We identify a condition on endpoint types that prevents these leaks from occurring.