How to Make Destructive Updates Less Destructive

Martin Odersky

POPL'91

We present a safe embedding of mutable data structures in functional
languages. With safety we mean that confluence and (in some sense)
referential transparency are maintained. We develop a static criterion
based on abstract interpretation which checks that any side-effect
which a function may exert via a destructive update remains invisible.
The technique opens up the possibility of designing safe and efficient
wide-spectrum languages which combine functional and
imperative language constructs.