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Compulog Net/ERCIM Workshop on Constraints

WC 1999: New Trends in Constraints pp 298–317Cite as

Proving Termination of Constraint Solver Programs

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Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 1865))

Abstract

We adapt and extend existing approaches to termination in rule-based languages (logic programming and rewriting systems) to prove termination of actually implemented CHR constraint solvers. CHR (Constraint Handling Rules) are a declarative language especially designed for writing constraint solvers. CHR are a concurrent constraint logic programming language consisting of multi-headed guarded rules that rewrite constraints into simpler ones until they are solved. The approach allows to prove termination of many constraint solvers, from Boolean and arithmetic to terminological and path-consistent constraints. Because of multi-heads, our termination orders must consider conjunctions, while atomic formulas suffice in usual approaches. Our results indicate that in practice, proving termination for concurrent constraint logic programs may not be harder than for other classes of logic programming languages, contrary to what has been feared in the literature.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Oettingenstrasse 67, D-80538, Munich, Germany

    Thom Frühwirth

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  1. Thom Frühwirth
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. CWI, Kruislaan 413, 1090, GB Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Krzysztof R. Apt  & Eric Monfroy  & 

  2. Department of Computer Science, University of Cyprus, 75 Kallipoleos Str., 1678, Nicosia, Cyprus

    Antonis C. Kakas

  3. Department of Pure and Applied Mathematics, University of Padua, Via G. B. Belzoni 7, 35131, Padua, Italy

    Francesca Rossi

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© 2000 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Frühwirth, T. (2000). Proving Termination of Constraint Solver Programs. In: Apt, K.R., Monfroy, E., Kakas, A.C., Rossi, F. (eds) New Trends in Constraints. WC 1999. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 1865. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-44654-0_15

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-44654-0_15

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-67885-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-44654-5

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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