Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Alexander Daniel Bromfield

John Joseph Duffy

Jared Porter Parsons

Krzysztof J Cwalina

Michael Sinz

Martin Taillefer

Michael Barnett

G Shon Katzenberger

David Allen Bartolomeo

Colin Stebbins Gordon

The annotation of a returned reference from an executable component to signify that there are no external references to the particular object graph referenced by the returned reference. If either 1) there are no input arguments to the executable component or 2) each input argument is either immutable or represents an object graph that has no external mutable references pointing into the object graph, and no internal mutable references that reference external objects, the particular attribute is assigned to the returned reference. Accordingly, if the returned reference is writable (as determined by evaluating the declaration code or the call code for the executable component), the returned reference is free to have whatever access permissions assigned to it, and may also be assigned to an isolated memory location, though such assignments will cause the returned reference to lose the particular attribute.

Reference attribute annotation signifying no external reference

A front-end compiler compiles source code into intermediate code, that may later be compiled into binary code. The source code defines an execution scope and includes a contract. When a contract is encountered at runtime of an execution scope, further execution of that execution scope is conditioned on whether a predicate associated with the contract is true. The front-end compiler operates so as to preserve the contract so that the contract continues to be semantically structured such that the predicate may be removed from the intermediate language code. The contract may thus continue to be understood by semantic analysis of the contract. Thus, the predicate may be understood by static analysis tools that operate on the intermediate code.

Operating system support for contracts

The type definition of particular types such that different portions of the corresponding object graph may have different permissions assigned to those portions during instantiation. This allows structured permissions to be applied to instantiations of the object graphs of those defined types, allowing fine grained control over what access permissions are enforced against which portions of the object graph. In some embodiments, different instantiations of the object graph may apply permissions differently.

Object graph partial immutability and isolation enforcement

A language extension that advances safety in system programming in that an entire type may be declared to be immutable in the case in which all instances of that type are immutable. The immutable type declaration automatically causes any instances of that type to be treated as immutable, and automatically causes all directly or indirectly reachable members (e.g., fields, methods, properties) of the instance to also be treated as immutable. Furthermore, any construction time reference that allows for field assignment of the instance is not permitted to survive beyond the point at which the instance becomes accessible to its creator. Accordingly, this instance, and any other instance of that same type, will be immutable from the very time of construction. The ability to classify all such instances as immutable is beneficial as the immutable characteristic permits actions that normally would not be allowed due to resource access safety.

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Alexander Daniel Bromfield