Type-based Escape Analysis with Existential Lifetimes
https://doi.org/10.15514/ISPRAS-2026-38(1)-6
Abstract
Escape analysis is a fundamental technique in programming languages used to ensure the safety of various compiler optimizations and language features. To achieve high precision and efficiency, particularly in interprocedural scenarios, escape analysis can be integrated into the type system. However, a significant drawback of this approach is that it often necessitates complex and verbose type annotations from the programmers.
In this paper, we introduce a novel type-based escape analysis that simplifies lifetime tracking for data types through the use of existential lifetimes. Additionally, our escape-analysis incorporates a minimum operation on lifetimes, which enables user-provided type annotations to more accurately capture a function’s data flow, thereby making them simpler and more intuitive to write. Finally, we present a prototype implementation of the corresponding type-checking algorithm.
About the Author
Andrey Sergeevich STOYAN
HSE University
Russian Federation
Russian Federation
Postgraduate student. Research interests: type theory, design of programming languages.
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Review
For citations:
STOYAN A.S. Type-based Escape Analysis with Existential Lifetimes. Proceedings of the Institute for System Programming of the RAS (Proceedings of ISP RAS). 2026;38(1):71-78. https://doi.org/10.15514/ISPRAS-2026-38(1)-6
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