[TYPES] Binary Reflective Type System for Communications

[David Ryan]

Hi,

Over the past six years I have been developing an extensible type
system for describing the format of binary data.  The core concept of
this type system is the definition of 35 data types which are used to
define the same set of data types.  This type system may then be
extended to with the ability to define new types or define new meta
data to define new types. This has been created with me having done
little type system theory other than compiler design, etc.

Having created this self referencing type system I would now like to
discover the type theory which best explains it.  I am sure that a
type system which has no external references will have been proposed
and that other examples of this type of system will be available in
computer science.  Can anyone point me in the right direction of what
I should look at first?

If anyone is interested, the following blog entry contains the 35 data
types and corresponding encoding:

http://blog.livemedia.com.au/2009/09/ietf-and-squeezing-meta-dictionary.html

Additional information is available at

www.einet.com.au

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
David.