Binding-time analysis: Abstract interpretation versus type inference

Binding-time analysis is important in partial evaluators. Its task is to determine which parts of a program can be evaluated if some of the expected input is known. Two approaches to do this are abstract interpretation and type inference. We compare two specific such analyses to see which one determines most program interpretation approach based on closure analysis and the second is the type inference approach of Gomard and Jones. Both apply to the pure λ-calculus. We prove that the abstract interpretation approach is more powerful than that of Gomard and Jones: the former determines the same and possibly more program parts to be eliminable as the latter.