Incremental Table-based Method Dispatch for Reeexive Object-oriented Languages

A collection of algorithms and data structures are presented which provide incremental dispatch table modiication. Incrementally modiied dispatch tables allow table-based dispatch techniques to be used in reeexive, dynamically typed, single-receiver languages with type/implementation-paired multiple inheritance. By storing a small amount of information, the algorithms can incrementally maintain the entire dispatch environment during the four fundamental environment modiication requests: adding/-removing selectors to/from classes and adding/removing class hierarchy links. The algorithms combine method dispatch calculation, inheritance management, and inheritance connict detection into a single process, making the algorithms highly eecient. The algorithms also incrementally compute hierarchy information useful during compilation to establish which method addresses can be uniquely identiied during compilation.