The Standard ML Basis Library

The book provides a description of the Standard ML (SML) Basis Library, the standard library for the SML language. For programmers using SML, it provides a complete description of the modules, types and functions composing the library, which is supported by all conforming implementations of the language. The book serves as a programmer’s reference, providing manual pages with concise descriptions. In addition, it presents the principles and rationales used in designing the library, and relates these to idioms and examples for using the library. A particular emphasis of the library is to encourage the use of SML in serious system programming. Major features of the library include I/O, a large collection of primitive types, support for internationalization, and a portable operating system interface. This manual will be an indispensable reference for students, professional programmers, and language designers.

Author Biography

Emden R. Gansner is Principal Technical Staff Member of AT&T Laboratories. Having taught at several prestigious universities, he is currently an adjunct Professor of Computer Science at Stevens Institute of Technology. He has published articles in numerous journals, such as J. Combinatorial Theory, Discrete Mathematics and SIAM J. Algorithms and Discrete Methods. He also jointly received a patent on a technique for drawing directed graphs. John H. Reppy is an Associate Professor of Computer Science at University of Chicago. He is also Associate Editor of ACM TOPLAS and author of Concurrent Programming in ML also published by Cambridge University Press.