Dynamic Rebinding for Marshalling and Update, via Redex-time and Destruct-time Reduction. Peter Sewell, Gareth Stoyle, Michael Hicks, Gavin Bierman, and Keith Wansbrough. Journal of Functional Programming, 18(4):437--502, 2008. [ bib | doi | pdf ]
Most programming languages adopt static binding, but for distributed programming an exclusive reliance on static binding is too restrictive: dynamic binding is required in various guises, for example, when a marshalled value is received from the network, containing identifiers that must be rebound to local resources. Typically, it is provided only by ad hoc mechanisms that lack clean semantics. In this paper, we adopt a foundational approach, developing core dynamic rebinding mechanisms as extensions to the simply typed call-by-value lambda calculus. To do so, we must first explore refinements of the call-by-value reduction strategy that delay instantiation, to ensure computations make use of the most recent versions of rebound definitions. We introduce redex-time and destruct-time strategies. The latter forms the basis for a lambda-marsh calculus that supports dynamic rebinding of marshalled values, while remaining as far as possible statically typed. We sketch an extension of lambda-marsh with concurrency and communication, giving examples showing how wrappers for encapsulating untrusted code can be expressed. Finally, we show that a high-level semantics for dynamic updating can also be based on the destruct-time strategy, defining a lambda-update calculus with simple primitives to provide type-safe updating of running code. We show how the ideas of this simple calculus extend to more real-world, module-level dynamic updating in the style of Erlang. We thereby establish primitives and a common semantic foundation for a variety of real-world dynamic rebinding requirements.
 
Mutatis Mutandis: Safe and predictable dynamic software updating. Gareth Stoyle, Michael Hicks, Gavin Bierman, Peter Sewell, and Iulian Neamtiu. ACM Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems (TOPLAS), 29(4):70pp, August 2007. [ bib | doi | pdf ]
This article presents Proteus, a core calculus that models dynamic software updating, a service for fixing bugs and adding features to a running program. Proteus permits a program's type structure to change dynamically but guarantees the updated program remains type-correct by ensuring a property we call con-freeness. We show how con-freeness can be enforced dynamically, and how it can be approximated via a novel static analysis. This analysis can be used to assess the implications of a program's structure on future updates in order to make update success more predictable. We have implemented Proteus for C, and briefly discuss our implementation which we have tested on several well-known programs.
 
Mutatis Mutandis: Safe and Predictable Dynamic Software Updating. Gareth Stoyle, Michael Hicks, Gavin Bierman, Peter Sewell, and Iulian Neamtiu. In POPL 2005. [ bib | doi | pdf | http ]
Dynamic software updates can be used to fix bugs or add features to a running program without downtime. Essential for some applications and convenient for others, low-level dynamic updating has been used for many years. Perhaps surprisingly, there is little high-level understanding or language support to help programmers write dynamic updates effectively.

To bridge this gap, we present Proteus, a core calculus for dynamic software updating in C-like languages that is flexible, safe, and predictable. Proteus supports dynamic updates to functions (even active ones), to named types and to data, allowing on-line evolution to match source-code evolution as we have observed it in practice. We ensure updates are type-safe by checking for a property we call “con-freeness” for updated types t at the point of update. This means that non-updated code will not use t concretely beyond that point (concrete usages are via explicit coercions) and thus t's representation can safely change. We show how con-freeness can be enforced dynamically for a particular program state. We additionally define a novel and efficient static updateability analysis to establish con-freeness statically, and can thus automatically infer program points at which all future (well-formed) updates will be type-safe. We have implemented our analysis for C and tested it on several well-known programs.

 
Dynamic Rebinding for Marshalling and Update, with Destruct-time λ. Gavin Bierman, Michael Hicks, Peter Sewell, Gareth Stoyle, and Keith Wansbrough. Technical Report UCAM-CL-TR-568, University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory, February 2004. 85pp. [ bib | ps | pdf | .html ]
Most programming languages adopt static binding, but for distributed programming an exclusive reliance on static binding is too restrictive: dynamic binding is required in various guises, for example when a marshalled value is received from the network, containing identifiers that must be rebound to local resources. Typically it is provided only by ad-hoc mechanisms that lack clean semantics.

In this paper we adopt a foundational approach, developing core dynamic rebinding mechanisms as extensions to the simply-typed call-by-value λ-calculus. To do so we must first explore refinements of the call-by-value reduction strategy that delay instantiation, to ensure computations make use of the most recent versions of rebound definitions. We introduce redex-time and destruct-time strategies. The latter forms the basis for a λ-marsh calculus that supports dynamic rebinding of marshalled values, while remaining as far as possible statically-typed. We sketch an extension of λ-marsh with concurrency and communication, giving examples showing how wrappers for encapsulating untrusted code can be expressed. Finally, we show that a high-level semantics for dynamic updating can also be based on the destruct-time strategy, defining a λ-update calculus with simple primitives to provide type-safe updating of running code. We thereby establish primitives and a common semantic foundation for a variety of real-world dynamic rebinding requirements.

 
Dynamic Rebinding for Marshalling and Update, with Destruct-time lambda. Gavin Bierman, Michael Hicks, Peter Sewell, Gareth Stoyle, and Keith Wansbrough. In ICFP 2003. [ bib | doi | ps | pdf | http ]
Most programming languages adopt static binding, but for distributed programming an exclusive reliance on static binding is too restrictive: dynamic binding is required in various guises, for example when a marshalled value is received from the network, containing identifiers that must be rebound to local resources. Typically it is provided only by ad-hoc mechanisms that lack clean semantics. In this paper we adopt a foundational approach, developing core dynamic rebinding mechanisms as extensions to simply-typed call-by-value lambda-calculus. To do so we must first explore refinements of the call-by-value reduction strategy that delay instantiation, to ensure computations make use of the most recent versions of rebound definitions. We introduce redex-time and destruct-time strategies. The latter forms the basis for a lambda-marsh calculus that supports dynamic rebinding of marshalled values, while remaining as far as possible statically-typed. We sketch an extension of lambda-marsh with concurrency and communication, giving examples showing how wrappers for encapsulating untrusted code can be expressed. Finally, we show that a high-level semantics for dynamic updating can also be based on the destruct-time strategy, defining a lambda-update calculus with simple primitives to provide type-safe updating of running code. We thereby establish primitives and a common semantic foundation for a variety of real-world dynamic rebinding requirements.
 
Formalizing Dynamic Software Updating. Gavin Bierman, Michael Hicks, Peter Sewell, and Gareth Stoyle. In USE 2003, 17pp. [ bib | ps | pdf ]
Dynamic software updating (DSU) enables running programs to be updated with new code and data without interrupting their execution. A number of DSU systems have been designed, but there is still little rigorous und erstanding of how to use DSU technology so that updates are safe. As a first step in this direction, we introduce a small update calculus with a precise mathematical semantics. The calculus is formulated as an extension of a typed lambda calculus, and supports updating technology similar to that of the programming language Erlang [2]. Our goal is to provide a simple yet expressive foundation for reasoning about dynamically updat eable software. In this paper, we present the details of the calculus, give some examples of its expressive power, and discuss how it might be used or extended to guarantee safety properties.