All-purpose quantifiers in an OO language

Abstract

The paper describes the introduction of quantifiers in a third generation language (YAFL) in order to reduce the semantic gap between specifications and code. Some extensions of the quantifier's mechanism beyond the pure mathematical formalism are presented, as well as implementation issues. YAFL has the following properties: it is an object oriented language that advocates strictness; it includes an automatic garbage collector; it generates C as intermediate language; it supports assertions (even if in a limited form); it supports genericity; it supports single inheritance only; it segregates the module structure from the class structure of a project; it segregates between predefined types from user defined classes; and YAFL supports arrays as first class citizen of the language, for the convenience of the ad hoc notation and the resulting performance.