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A Generic Reification Technique for Object-Oriented Reflective Languages

Authors:

Mario SüdholtAuthors Info & Claims

Higher-Order and Symbolic Computation, Volume 14, Issue 1

Pages 7 - 34

https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1011549115358

Published: 01 March 2001 Publication History

Abstract

Computational reflection is gaining interest in practical applications as witnessed by the use of reflection in the Java programming environment and recent work on reflective middleware. Reflective systems offer many different reflection programming interfaces, the so-called Meta-Object Protocols (MOPs). Their design is subject to a number of constraints relating to, among others, expressive power, efficiency and security properties. Since these constraints are different from one application to another, it would be desirable to easily provide specially-tailored MOPs.

In this paper, we present a generic reification technique based on program transformation. It enables the selective reification of arbitrary parts of object-oriented meta-circular interpreters. The reification process is of fine granularity: individual objects of the run-time system can be reified independently. Furthermore, the program transformation can be applied to different interpreter definitions. Each resulting reflective implementation provides a different MOP directly derived from the original interpreter definition.

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Cited By

Lilis YSavidis A(2019)A Survey of Metaprogramming LanguagesACM Computing Surveys10.1145/335458452:6(1-39)Online publication date: 16-Oct-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3354584
Clark TFuentes LBatory DCzarnecki K(2016)Static meta-object protocols: towards efficient reflective object-oriented languagesCompanion Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Modularity10.1145/2892664.2892694(160-167)Online publication date: 14-Mar-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2892664.2892694
Verwaest TBruni CGurtner DLienhard ANiestrasz O(2010)PinocchioACM SIGPLAN Notices10.1145/1932682.186952245:10(774-789)Online publication date: 17-Oct-2010
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1932682.1869522
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Information

Published In

cover image Higher-Order and Symbolic Computation

Higher-Order and Symbolic Computation Volume 14, Issue 1

March 2001

85 pages

ISSN:1388-3690

Issue’s Table of Contents

Copyright © Copyright © 2001 Kluwer Academic Publishers.

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Kluwer Academic Publishers

United States

Publication History

Published: 01 March 2001

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Cited By

Lilis YSavidis A(2019)A Survey of Metaprogramming LanguagesACM Computing Surveys10.1145/335458452:6(1-39)Online publication date: 16-Oct-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3354584
Clark TFuentes LBatory DCzarnecki K(2016)Static meta-object protocols: towards efficient reflective object-oriented languagesCompanion Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Modularity10.1145/2892664.2892694(160-167)Online publication date: 14-Mar-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2892664.2892694
Verwaest TBruni CGurtner DLienhard ANiestrasz O(2010)PinocchioACM SIGPLAN Notices10.1145/1932682.186952245:10(774-789)Online publication date: 17-Oct-2010
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1932682.1869522
Verwaest TBruni CGurtner DLienhard ANiestrasz OCook WClarke SRinard MSullivan KSteinberg D(2010)PinocchioProceedings of the ACM international conference on Object oriented programming systems languages and applications10.1145/1869459.1869522(774-789)Online publication date: 17-Oct-2010
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1869459.1869522
Clavel MMeseguer JPalomino M(2007)Reflection in membership equational logic, many-sorted equational logic, Horn logic with equality, and rewriting logicTheoretical Computer Science10.1016/j.tcs.2006.12.009373:1-2(70-91)Online publication date: 10-Mar-2007
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1016/j.tcs.2006.12.009
Sullivan G(2001)Aspect-oriented programming using reflection and metaobject protocolsCommunications of the ACM10.1145/383845.38386544:10(95-97)Online publication date: 1-Oct-2001
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/383845.383865

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