Formal analysis of a distributed object-oriented language and runtime

Abstract

Distributed language features form an important part of modern objectoriented programming. In spite of their prominence in today’s computing environments, the formal semantics of distributed primitives for object-oriented languages have not been well-understood, in contrast to their sequential part. This makes it difficult to perform rigorous analysis of their behaviour and develop formally founded safety methodologies. As a first step to rectify this situation, we present an operational semantics and typing system for a Java-like core language with primitives for distribution. The language captures the crucial but often hidden concerns involved in distributed objects, including object serialisation, dynamic class downloading and remote method invocation. We propose several invariant properties that describe important correctness conditions for distributed runtime behaviour. These invariants also play a fundamental rˆole in establishing type safety, and help bound the design space for extensions to the language. The semantics of the language are constructed modularly, allowing straightforward extension, and this is exploited by adding primitives for direct code distribution to the language: thunk passing. Typing rules for the new primitives are developed using the invariants as an analysis tool, with type soundness ensuring that their inclusion does not violate safety guarantees.