Composable Partial Multiparty Session Types

• Published in: Formal Aspects of Component Software Vol. 13077; pp. 44 - 62
• Main Authors: Stolze, Claude, Miculan, Marino, Di Gianantonio, Pietro
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland Springer International Publishing AG 2021; Springer International Publishing
• Series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science
• Subjects: Multiparty session types; open systems; process algebras
• ISBN: 9783030906351; 3030906353
• ISSN: 0302-9743; 1611-3349
• DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-90636-8_3

We introduce partial sessions and partial (multiparty) session types, in order to deal with open systems, i.e., systems with missing components. Partial sessions can be composed, and the type of the resulting system is derived from those of its components without knowing any suitable global type nor the types of missing parts. Incompatible types, due to e.g. miscommunications or deadlocks, are detected at the merging phase. We apply these types to a process calculus, for which we prove subject reduction and progress, so that well-typed systems never violate the prescribed constraints. Therefore, partial session types support the development of systems by incremental assembling of components.