Abstract
The paper describes a new reflective language mechanism and its implementation. The mechanism called Octopus is designed to support a wide variety of database programming and software engineering applications which previously required much heavier weight mechanisms, such as the use of a compiler at run-time, or unsafe language mechanisms. The implementation of this mechanism requires structured type representations to be available for manipulation at run-time and architecture support for boxed values. These implementation techniques are described and the cost of these mechanisms is examined.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Proceedings of the 17th Australasian Computer Science Conference |
| Place of Publication | Christchurch, New Zealand |
| Publisher | Australian Computer Science Communications |
| Pages | 581-590 |
| Publication status | Published - 1994 |