Polymorphic components for monomorphic languages

Most procedural programming languages, due to their restricted type systems, do not allow for polymorphic software components in the style of functional languages, although polymorphism greatly increases the potential for component reuse, while guaranteeing the security of strong typing. It is shown how to obtain polymorphic software components for ordinary languages like C or Modula-2. The method is based on generic type inference in a software component library. The source of polymorphism is the use of free (undeclared) names in a component. The analysis algorithm will infer signature schemes, which are analogous to type schemes in functional languages. Signature schemes can be used to check library consistency and make it possible to retrieve components by usage patterns