Filtered dispatch

Abstract

Predicate dispatching is a generalized form of dynamic dispatch, which has strong limitations when arbitrary predicates of the underlying base language are used. Unlike classes, which enforce subset relationships between their sets of instances, arbitrary predicates generally do not designate subsets of each other, so methods whose applicability is based on predicates cannot be ordered according to their specificity in the general case. This paper introduces a decidable but expressive alternative mechanism called filtered dispatch that adds a simple preprocessing step before the actual method dispatch is performed and thus enables the use of arbitrary predicates for selecting and applying methods.