Type erasure
{{Short description|Process by which explicit type annotations are removed from a program}}
In programming languages, type erasure is the load-time process by which explicit type annotations are removed from a program, before it is executed at run-time. Operational semantics not requiring programs to be accompanied by types are named type-erasure semantics, in contrast with type-passing semantics. Type-erasure semantics is an abstraction principle, ensuring that the run-time execution of a program doesn't depend on type information. In the context of generic programming, the opposite of type erasure is named reification.{{cite web|last1=Langer|first1=Angelika|title=What is reification?|url=http://www.angelikalanger.com/GenericsFAQ/FAQSections/TechnicalDetails.html#FAQ101A}}
Type inference
{{Main|Type inference}}
The reverse operation is named type inference. Though type erasure can be an easy way to define typing over implicitly typed languages (an implicitly typed term is well-typed if and only if it is the erasure of a well-typed explicitly typed lambda term), it doesn't provide Rule of inference for this definition.
See also
References
{{Reflist}}
- {{cite journal
| first1 = Karl | last1 = Crary
| first2 = Stephanie | last2 = Weirich | author2-link= Stephanie Weirich
| first3 = Greg | last3 = Morrisett
| title = Intensional Polymorphism in Type-Erasure Semantics
| journal = Journal of Functional Programming
| volume = 12
| issue = 6
| pages = 567–600
|doi = 10.1017/S0956796801004282
| year = 2002
| citeseerx = 10.1.1.5.4507
}}
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