Java SAM Typed Closures: A Sound and Complete Type Inference System for Nominal Types

Abstract

The last proposal for Java closures, as emerged in JSR 000335, is mainly innovative in: (1) Use of nominal types, SAM types, for closures; (2) Introduction of target types and compatibility for a contextual typing of closures; (3) Need for a type inference that reconstructs the omitted type annotations of closures and closure arguments. The paper provides a sound and complete type system, with nominal types, for such a type inference and discusses role and formalization of targeting and of compatibility in the designed inference process.