Miscellaneous Design Issues in the ML Kit

Introduction: This document covers a number of assorted design topics involving the ML Kit. These issues are sufficiently small that they do not merit reports of their own, and yet it is important that they be covered in order to gain a more complete understanding of how the Kit operates. The sections are as follows:

• Section 2 covers the evaluation of the Modules language and the implementation of the associated dynamic environments;
• Section 3 describes some of the higher levels of the interpreter, and the way that the execution and evaluation heirarchy is structured;
• Section 4 describes the mechanism used for top-level printing;
• Section 5 details the implementation of the pervasive functions of the Kit, corresponding to APPLY in the Definition;
• Section 5 describes the detection and reporting of elaboration errors;
• Section 7 describes file nesting and inclusion, and the semantics and implementation of the use function;
• Section 8 describes the implementation of records, specifically the notion of flexible record which is needed to support the ``{...}'' notation in record patterns;
• Section 9 lists the incomplete and unimplemented parts of the system.

LFCS report ECS-LFCS-92-237, September 1992.