Skip to main navigation Skip to search Skip to main content

Capabilities: Effects for Free

  • Aaron Craig
  • , Alex Potanin*
  • , Lindsay Groves
  • , Jonathan Aldrich
  • *Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference Paper › peer-review

5 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Object capabilities are increasingly used to reason informally about the properties of secure systems. But can capabilities also aid in formal reasoning? To answer this question, we examine a calculus that uses effects to capture resource use and extend it to support capability-based reasoning. We demonstrate that capabilities provide a way to reason about effects: we can bound the effects of an expression based on the capabilities to which it has access. This reasoning is “free” in that it relies only on type-checking (not effect-checking), does not require the programmer to add effect annotations within the expression, and does not require the expression to be analysed for its effects. Our result sheds light on the essence of what capabilities provide and suggests ways of integrating lightweight capability-based reasoning into languages.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationFormal Methods and Software Engineering - 20th International Conference on Formal Engineering Methods, ICFEM 2018, Proceedings
EditorsJing Sun, Meng Sun
Place of PublicationCham
PublisherSpringer
Pages231-247
Number of pages17
ISBN (Electronic)978-3-030-02450-5
ISBN (Print)978-3-030-02449-9
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2018
Externally publishedYes
Event20th International Conference on Formal Engineering Methods, ICFEM 2018 - Gold Coast, Australia
Duration: 12 Nov 2018 → 16 Nov 2018

Publication series

NameLecture Notes in Computer Science
Volume11232 (LNPSE)
ISSN (Print)0302-9743
ISSN (Electronic)1611-3349

Conference

Conference20th International Conference on Formal Engineering Methods, ICFEM 2018
Country/TerritoryAustralia
CityGold Coast
Period12/11/18 → 16/11/18

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Capabilities: Effects for Free'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this