Safe Reflection Through Polymorphism

DOI
Publisher DOI
Abstract
Code executed in a fully reflective system switches back and forth between application and interpreter code. These two states can be seen as contexts in which an expression is evaluated. Current language implementations obtain reflective capabilities by exposing objects to the interpreter. However, in doing so these systems break the encapsulation of the application objects. In this paper we propose safe reflection through polymorphism, \ie by unifying the interface and ensuring the encapsulation of objects from both the interpreter and application context. We demonstrate a \emphhomogeneous system that defines the execution semantics in terms of itself, thus enforcing that encapsulation is not broken.
Date Issued
2009
Publication Type
Conference Item
Language(s)
en
Author(s)
Additional Credits
Publisher
Association for Computing Machinery ACM
ISBN
978-1-60558-707-3
Title of Event
Access(Rights)
restricted
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