TWELFTH EDITION

GLOBAL EDITION

Chapter 6

Data Types

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Chapter 6 Topics
• Introduction
• Primitive Data Types
• Character String Types
• Enumeration Types
• Array Types
• Associative Arrays
• Record Types
• Tuple Types
• List Types
• Union Types
• Pointer and Reference Types
• Optional Types
• Type Checking
• Strong Typing
• Type Equivalence
• Theory and Data Types

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Introduction

• A data type defines a collection of data

objects and a set of predefined
operations on those objects
• A descriptor is the collection of the
attributes of a variable
• An object represents an instance of a
user-defined (abstract data) type
• One design issue for all data types: What
operations are defined and how are they
specified?

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Primitive Data Types

• Almost all programming languages

provide a set of primitive data types
• Primitive data types: Those not defined in
terms of other data types
• Some primitive data types are merely
reflections of the hardware
• Others require only a little non-hardware
support for their implementation

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Primitive Data Types: Integer

• Almost always an exact reflection of the

hardware so the mapping is trivial
• There may be as many as eight different
integer types in a language
• Java’s signed integer sizes: byte, short,
int, long

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Primitive Data Types: Floating
Point
• Model real numbers, but only as
approximations
• Languages for scientific use support at
least two floating-point types (e.g., float
and double; sometimes more
• Usually exactly like the hardware, but not
always
• IEEE Floating-Point
Standard 754

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Primitive Data Types: Complex

• Some languages support a complex type,

e.g., C99, Fortran, and Python
• Each value consists of two floats, the real
part and the imaginary part
• Literal form (in Python):
(7 + 3j), where 7 is the real part and 3 is
the imaginary part

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Primitive Data Types: Decimal

• For business applications (money)

– Essential to COBOL
– C# offers a decimal data type
• Store a fixed number of decimal digits, in
coded form (BCD)
• Advantage: accuracy
• Disadvantages: limited range, wastes
memory

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Primitive Data Types: Boolean

• Simplest of all
• Range of values: two elements, one for
“true” and one for “false”
• Could be implemented as bits, but often
as bytes
– Advantage: readability

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Primitive Data Types: Character

• Stored as numeric codings

• Most commonly used coding: ASCII
• An alternative, 16-bit coding: Unicode
(UCS-2)
– Includes characters from most natural
languages
– Originally used in Java
– Now supported by many languages
• 32-bit Unicode (UCS-4)
– Supported by Fortran, starting with 2003

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Character String Types

• Values are sequences of characters

• Design issues:
– Is it a primitive type or just a special kind of
array?
– Should the length of strings be static or
dynamic?

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Character String Types Operations

• Typical operations:
– Assignment and copying
– Comparison (=, >, etc.)
– Catenation
– Substring reference
– Pattern matching

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Character String Type in Certain
Languages
• C and C++
– Not primitive
– Use char arrays and a library of functions that provide
operations
• SNOBOL4 (a string manipulation language)
– Primitive
– Many operations, including elaborate pattern matching
• Fortran and Python
– Primitive type with assignment and several operations
• Java (and C#, Ruby, and Swift)
– Primitive via the String class
• Perl, JavaScript, Ruby, and PHP
- Provide built-in pattern matching, using regular
expressions

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Character String Length Options

• Static: COBOL, Java’s String class

• Limited Dynamic Length: C and C++
– In these languages, a special character is used
to indicate the end of a string’s characters,
rather than maintaining the length
• Dynamic (no maximum): SNOBOL4, Perl,
JavaScript

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Character String Type Evaluation

• Aid to writability
• As a primitive type with static length, they
are inexpensive to provide--why not have
them?
• Dynamic length is nice, but is it worth the
expense?

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Character String Implementation

• Static length: compile-time descriptor

• Limited dynamic length: may need a run-
time descriptor for length (but not in C
and C++)
• Dynamic length: need run-time descriptor;
allocation/deallocation is the biggest
implementation problem

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Compile- and Run-Time Descriptors

Compile-time Run-time
descriptor for descriptor for
static strings limited dynamic
strings
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User-Defined Ordinal Types

• An ordinal type is one in which the range

of possible values can be easily
associated with the set of positive
integers
• Examples of primitive ordinal types in Java
– integer
– char
– boolean

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Enumeration Types

• All possible values, which are named

constants, are provided in the definition
• C# example
enum days {mon, tue, wed, thu, fri, sat, sun};
• Design issues
– Is an enumeration constant allowed to appear
in more than one type definition, and if so,
how is the type of an occurrence of that
constant checked?
– Are enumeration values coerced to integer?
– Any other type coerced to an enumeration
type?
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Evaluation of Enumerated Type

• Aid to readability, e.g., no need to code a

color as a number
• Aid to reliability, e.g., compiler can check:
– operations (don’t allow colors to be added)
– No enumeration variable can be assigned a
value outside its defined range
– C#, F#, Swift, and Java 5.0 provide better
support for enumeration than C++ because
enumeration type variables in these languages
are not coerced into integer types

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Array Types

• An array is a homogeneous aggregate of

data elements in which an individual
element is identified by its position in the
aggregate, relative to the first element.

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Array Design Issues
• What types are legal for subscripts?
• Are subscripting expressions in element
references range checked?
• When are subscript ranges bound?
• When does allocation take place?
• Are ragged or rectangular multidimensional
arrays allowed, or both?
• What is the maximum number of subscripts?
• Can array objects be initialized?
• Are any kind of slices supported?

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Array Indexing

• Indexing (or subscripting) is a mapping

from indices to elements
array_name (index_value_list)  an element
• Index Syntax
– Fortran and Ada use parentheses
• Ada explicitly uses parentheses to show uniformity
between array references and function calls
because both are mappings
– Most other languages use brackets

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Arrays Index (Subscript) Types

• FORTRAN, C: integer only

• Java: integer types only
• Index range checking
- C, C++, Perl, and Fortran do not specify
range checking
- Java, ML, C# specify range checking

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Subscript Binding and Array
Categories
• Static: subscript ranges are statically
bound and storage allocation is static
(before run-time)
– Advantage: efficiency (no dynamic allocation)
• Fixed stack-dynamic: subscript ranges are
statically bound, but the allocation is done
at declaration time
– Advantage: space efficiency

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Subscript Binding and Array
Categories (continued)
• Fixed heap-dynamic: similar to fixed
stack-dynamic: storage binding is
dynamic but fixed after allocation (i.e.,
binding is done when requested and
storage is allocated from heap, not stack)

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Subscript Binding and Array
Categories (continued)

• Heap-dynamic: binding of subscript

ranges and storage allocation is dynamic
and can change any number of times
– Advantage: flexibility (arrays can grow or
shrink during program execution)

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Subscript Binding and Array
Categories (continued)
• C and C++ arrays that include static
modifier are static
• C and C++ arrays without static modifier
are fixed stack-dynamic
• C and C++ provide fixed heap-dynamic
arrays
• C# includes a second array class ArrayList
that provides fixed heap-dynamic
• Perl, JavaScript, Python, and Ruby support
heap-dynamic arrays
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Array Initialization

• Some language allow initialization at the

time of storage allocation
– C, C++, Java, Swift, and C#
– C# example:
int list [] = {4, 5, 7, 83}
– Character strings in C and C++
char name [] = ″freddie″;
– Arrays of strings in C and C++
char *names [] = {″Bob″, ″Jake″, ″Joe″];
– Java initialization of String objects
String[] names = {″Bob″, ″Jake″, ″Joe″};

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Heterogeneous Arrays

• A heterogeneous array is one in which the

elements need not be of the same type
• Supported by Perl, Python, JavaScript, and
Ruby

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Array Initialization

• C-based languages
– int list [] = {1, 3, 5, 7}
– char *names [] = {″Mike″, ″Fred″, ″Mary Lou″};
• Python
– List comprehensions
list = [x ** 2 for x in range(12) if x % 3 == 0]
puts [0, 9, 36, 81] in list

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Arrays Operations
• APL provides the most powerful array processing
operations for vectors and matrixes as well as
unary operators (for example, to reverse column
elements)
• Python’s array assignments, but they are only
reference changes. Python also supports array
catenation and element membership operations
• Ruby also provides array catenation

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Rectangular and Jagged Arrays

• A rectangular array is a multi-dimensioned

array in which all of the rows have the
same number of elements and all columns
have the same number of elements
• A jagged matrix has rows with varying
number of elements
– Possible when multi-dimensioned arrays
actually appear as arrays of arrays
• C, C++, and Java support jagged arrays
• F# and C# support rectangular arrays and
jagged arrays
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Slices

• A slice is some substructure of an array;

nothing more than a referencing
mechanism
• Slices are only useful in languages that
have array operations

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Slice Examples

• Python
vector = [2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16]
mat = [[1, 2, 3], [4, 5, 6], [7, 8, 9]]

vector (3:6) is a three-element array

mat[0][0:2] is the first and second element of the
first row of mat
• Ruby supports slices with the slice method
list.slice(2, 2) returns the third and fourth
elements of list

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Implementation of Arrays
• Access function maps subscript expressions
to an address in the array
• Access function for single-dimensioned
arrays:
address(list[k]) = address
(list[lower_bound])
+ ((k-lower_bound) * element_size)

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Accessing Multi-dimensioned Arrays

• Two common ways:

– Row major order (by rows) – used in most
languages
– Column major order (by columns) – used in
Fortran
– A compile-time descriptor
for a multidimensional
array

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Locating an Element in a Multi-
dimensioned Array
• General format
Location (a[I,j]) = address of a [row_lb,col_lb]
+ (((I - row_lb) * n) + (j - col_lb)) *
element_size

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Compile-Time Descriptors

Single-dimensioned array Multidimensional array

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Associative Arrays

• An associative array is an unordered

collection of data elements that are
indexed by an equal number of values
called keys
– User-defined keys must be stored
• Design issues:
- What is the form of references to elements?
- Is the size static or dynamic?
• Built-in type in Perl, Python, Ruby, and
Swift
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Associative Arrays in Perl

• Names begin with %; literals are

delimited by parentheses
%hi_temps = ("Mon" => 77, "Tue" => 79, "Wed" =>
65, …);
• Subscripting is done using braces and
keys
$hi_temps{"Wed"} = 83;
– Elements can be removed with delete
delete $hi_temps{"Tue"};

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Record Types
• A record is a possibly heterogeneous
aggregate of data elements in which the
individual elements are identified by
names
• Design issues:
– What is the syntactic form of references to the
field?
– Are elliptical references allowed

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Definition of Records in COBOL

• COBOL uses level numbers to show

nested records; others use recursive
definition
01 EMP-REC.
02 EMP-NAME.
05 FIRST PIC X(20).
05 MID PIC X(10).
05 LAST PIC X(20).
02 HOURLY-RATE PIC 99V99.

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Evaluation and Comparison to
Arrays
• Records are used when collection of data
values is heterogeneous
• Access to array elements is much slower
than access to record fields, because
subscripts are dynamic (field names are
static)
• Dynamic subscripts could be used with
record field access, but it would disallow
type checking and it would be much
slower

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Implementation of Record Type

Offset address relative to

the beginning of the
records is associated with
each field

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Tuple Types

• A tuple is a data type that is similar to a

record, except that the elements are not
named
• Used in Python, ML, and F# to allow
functions to return multiple values
– Python
• Closely related to its lists, but immutable
• Create with a tuple literal
myTuple = (3, 5.8, ′apple′)
Referenced with subscripts (begin at 1)
Catenation with + and deleted with del

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Tuple Types (continued)

• ML
val myTuple = (3, 5.8, ′apple′);
- Access as follows:
#1(myTuple) is the first element
- A new tuple type can be defined
type intReal = int * real;
(The asterisk is just a separator)
• F#
let tup = (3, 5, 7)
let a, b, c = tup
This assigns a tuple to a tuple pattern (a, b, c)

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List Types
• Lists in Lisp and Scheme are delimited by
parentheses and use no commas
(A B C D) and (A (B C) D)
• Data and code have the same form
As data, (A B C) is literally what it is
As code, (A B C) is the function A applied to the
parameters B and C
• The interpreter needs to know which a list
is, so if it is data, we quote it with an
apostrophe
′(A B C) is data
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List Types (continued)

• List Operations in Scheme

– CAR returns the first element of its list
parameter
(CAR ′(A B C)) returns A
– CDR returns the remainder of its list parameter
after the first element has been removed
(CDR ′(A B C)) returns (B C)
- CONS puts its first parameter into its second
parameter, a list, to make a new list
(CONS ′A (B C)) returns (A B C)
- LIST returns a new list of its parameters
(LIST ′A ′B ′(C D)) returns (A B (C D))
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List Types (continued)

• List Operations in ML
– Lists are written in brackets and the elements
are separated by commas
– List elements must be of the same type
– The Scheme CONS function is a binary operator
in ML, ::
3 :: [5, 7, 9] evaluates to [3, 5, 7, 9]
– The Scheme CAR and CDR functions are named
hd and tl, respectively

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List Types (continued)

• F# Lists
– Like those of ML, except elements are
separated by semicolons and hd and tl are
methods of the List class
• Python Lists
– The list data type also serves as Python’s
arrays
– Unlike Scheme, Common Lisp, ML, and F#,
Python’s lists are mutable
– Elements can be of any type
– Create a list with an assignment
myList = [3, 5.8, "grape"]
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List Types (continued)

• Python Lists (continued)

– List elements are referenced with subscripting,
with indices beginning at zero
x = myList[1] Sets x to 5.8
– List elements can be deleted with del
del myList[1]
– List Comprehensions – derived from set
notation
[x * x for x in range(6) if x % 3 == 0]
range(12) creates [0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]
Constructed list: [0, 9, 36]

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List Types (continued)

• Haskell’s List Comprehensions

– The original
[n * n | n <- [1..10]]
• F#’s List Comprehensions
let myArray = [|for i in 1 .. 5 -> [i * i) |]
• Both C# and Java supports lists through
their generic heap-dynamic collection
classes, List and ArrayList, respectively

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Unions Types
• A union is a type whose variables are
allowed to store different type values at
different times during execution
• Design issue
– Should type checking be required?

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Discriminated vs. Free Unions

• C and C++ provide union constructs in

which there is no language support for
type checking; the union in these
languages is called free union
• Type checking of unions require that each
union include a type indicator called a
discriminant
– Supported by ML, Haskell, and F#

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Unions in F#

• Defined with a type statement using OR

type intReal =
| IntValue of int
| RealValue of float;;
intReal is the new type
IntValue and RealValue are constructors

To create a value of type intReal:

let ir1 = IntValue 17;;
let ir2 = RealValue 3.4;;

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Unions in F# (continued)

• Accessing the value of a union is done

with
pattern matching
match pattern with
| expression_list1 -> expression1

| …
| expression_listn -> expressionn

- Pattern can be any data type

- The expression list can have wild cards
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Unions in F# (continued)

Example:
let a = 7;;
let b = ″grape″;;
let x = match (a, b) with
| 4, ″apple″ -> apple
| _, ″grape″ -> grape
| _ -> fruit;;

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Unions in F# (continued)

To display the type of the intReal union:

let printType value =
match value with
| IntVale value -> printfn ″int″
| RealValue value -> printfn ″float″;;

If ir1 and ir2 are defined as previously,

printType ir1 returns int
printType ir2 returns float

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Evaluation of Unions

• Free unions are unsafe

– Do not allow type checking

• Java and C# do not support unions

– Reflective of growing concerns for safety in
programming language

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Pointer and Reference Types

• A pointer type variable has a range of

values that consists of memory addresses
and a special value, nil
• Provide the power of indirect addressing
• Provide a way to manage dynamic
memory
• A pointer can be used to access a location
in the area where storage is dynamically
created (usually called a heap)

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Design Issues of Pointers

• What are the scope of and lifetime of a

pointer variable?
• What is the lifetime of a heap-dynamic
variable?
• Are pointers restricted as to the type of
value to which they can point?
• Are pointers used for dynamic storage
management, indirect addressing, or
both?
• Should the language support pointer
types, reference types, or both?
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Pointer Operations

• Two fundamental operations: assignment

and dereferencing
• Assignment is used to set a pointer
variable’s value to some useful address
• Dereferencing yields the value stored at
the location represented by the pointer’s
value
– Dereferencing can be explicit or implicit
– C++ uses an explicit operation via *
j = *ptr
sets j to the value located at ptr

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Pointer Assignment Illustrated

The assignment operation j = *ptr

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Problems with Pointers
• Dangling pointers (dangerous)
– A pointer points to a heap-dynamic variable that has
been deallocated
• Lost heap-dynamic variable
– An allocated heap-dynamic variable that is no longer
accessible to the user program (often called garbage)
• Pointer p1 is set to point to a newly created heap-
dynamic variable
• Pointer p1 is later set to point to another newly created
heap-dynamic variable
• The process of losing heap-dynamic variables is called
memory leakage

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Pointers in C and C++

• Extremely flexible but must be used with care

• Pointers can point at any variable regardless of
when or where it was allocated
• Used for dynamic storage management and
addressing
• Pointer arithmetic is possible
• Explicit dereferencing and address-of operators
• Domain type need not be fixed (void *)
void * can point to any type and can be type
checked (cannot be de-referenced)

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Pointer Arithmetic in C and C++

float stuff[100];
float *p;
p = stuff;

*(p+5) is equivalent to stuff[5] and p[5]

*(p+i) is equivalent to stuff[i] and p[i]

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Reference Types

• C++ includes a special kind of pointer

type called a reference type that is used
primarily for formal parameters
– Advantages of both pass-by-reference and
pass-by-value
• Java extends C++’s reference variables
and allows them to replace pointers
entirely
– References are references to objects, rather
than being addresses
• C# includes both the references of Java
and the pointers of C++
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Evaluation of Pointers

• Dangling pointers and dangling objects

are problems as is heap management
• Pointers are like goto's--they widen the
range of cells that can be accessed by a
variable
• Pointers or references are necessary for
dynamic data structures--so we can't
design a language without them

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Representations of Pointers
• Large computers use single values
• Intel microprocessors use segment and
offset

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Dangling Pointer Problem

• Tombstone: extra heap cell that is a pointer to

the heap-dynamic variable
– The actual pointer variable points only at tombstones
– When heap-dynamic variable de-allocated, tombstone
remains but set to nil
– Costly in time and space
. Locks-and-keys: Pointer values are represented as
(key, address) pairs
– Heap-dynamic variables are represented as variable
plus cell for integer lock value
– When heap-dynamic variable allocated, lock value is
created and placed in lock cell and key cell of pointer

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Heap Management

• A very complex run-time process

• Single-size cells vs. variable-size cells
• Two approaches to reclaim garbage
– Reference counters (eager approach):
reclamation is gradual
– Mark-sweep (lazy approach): reclamation
occurs when the list of variable space
becomes empty

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Reference Counter
• Reference counters: maintain a counter in
every cell that store the number of
pointers currently pointing at the cell
– Disadvantages: space required, execution time
required, complications for cells connected
circularly
– Advantage: it is intrinsically incremental, so
significant delays in the application execution
are avoided

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Mark-Sweep
• The run-time system allocates storage cells as
requested and disconnects pointers from cells
as necessary; mark-sweep then begins
– Every heap cell has an extra bit used by collection
algorithm
– All cells initially set to garbage
– All pointers traced into heap, and reachable cells
marked as not garbage
– All garbage cells returned to list of available cells
– Disadvantages: in its original form, it was done too
infrequently. When done, it caused significant delays
in application execution. Contemporary mark-sweep
algorithms avoid this by doing it more often—called
incremental mark-sweep
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Marking Algorithm

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Variable-Size Cells

• All the difficulties of single-size cells plus

more
• Required by most programming languages
• If mark-sweep is used, additional
problems occur
– The initial setting of the indicators of all cells
in the heap is difficult
– The marking process in nontrivial
– Maintaining the list of available space is
another source of overhead

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 Optional Types
- Optional types are useful when there is a need for a variable to
indicate that it currently has no value

- C#, F#, and Swift, among others, have optional types

- Reference types in C# are already optional types (use null for no

value)

- Value types in C# (struct types) can be declared to be optional by

attaching a question mark to the type name in their declaration

int? x;

- The no-value is null, which can be assigned to x and x can be

tested for it

- In Swift, nil is used instead of null

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Type Checking

• Generalize the concept of operands and operators to

include subprograms and assignments

• Type checking is the activity of ensuring that the operands

of an operator are of compatible types

• A compatible type is one that is either legal for the

operator, or is allowed under language rules to be implicitly
converted, by compiler- generated code, to a legal type
– This automatic conversion is called a coercion.

• A type error is the application of an operator to an operand

of an inappropriate type

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Type Checking (continued)

• If all type bindings are static, nearly all

type checking can be static
• If type bindings are dynamic, type
checking must be dynamic
• A programming language is strongly typed
if type errors are always detected
• Advantage of strong typing: allows the
detection of the misuses of variables that
result in type errors

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Strong Typing

Language examples:
– C and C++ are not: parameter type checking
can be avoided; unions are not type checked
– Java and C# are, almost (because of explicit
type casting)
- ML and F# are

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Strong Typing (continued)

• Coercion rules strongly affect strong

typing--they can weaken it considerably
(C++ versus ML and F#)

• Although Java has just half the assignment

coercions of C++, its strong typing is still
far less effective than that of Ada

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Summary

• The data types of a language are a large part of

what determines that language’s style and
usefulness
• The primitive data types of most imperative
languages include numeric, character, and
Boolean types
• The user-defined enumeration and subrange
types are convenient and add to the readability
and reliability of programs
• Arrays and records are included in most
languages
• Pointers are used for addressing flexibility and to
control dynamic storage management
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