Constraint Logic Programming (CLP) is a merger of two declarative paradigms: constraint solving and logic programming. Although a relatively new field, CLP has progressed in several quite different directions. In particular, the early fundamental concepts have been adapted to better serve in different areas of applications. In this survey of CLP, a primary goal is to give a systematic description of the major trends in terms of common fundamental concepts. The three main parts cover the theory, implementation issues, and programming for applications.

Almost all constraint logic programming systems include negation, yet nowhere has a sound operational model for negation in CLP been discussed. The SLDNF approach of only allowing ground negative subgoals to execute is very restrictive in constraint logic programming where most variables appearing in a derivation never become ground. By describing a scheme for constructive negation in constraint logic programming we give a sound and complete operational model for negation in these languages. Constructive negation was first formulated for logic programming in the Herbrand Universe and involves introducing disequality constraints. Constraint logic programming thus provides a much more natural framework for describing constructive negation. In this paper we describe a framework for constructive negation for constraint logic programming over arbitrary structures which is sound and complete with respect to the three-valued consequences of the completion of a program. Through this descriptio...

We present an algorithm for generating strings from logical form encodings that improves upon previous algorithms in that it places fewer restrictions on the class of grammars to which it is applicable. In particular, unlike an Earley deduction generator (Shieber, 1988), it allows use of semantically nonmonotonic grammars, yet unlike topdown methods, it also permits left-recursion. The enabling design feature of the algorithm is its implicit traversal of the analysis tree for the string being generated in a semantic-head-driven fashion.

We present an algorithm for automatic type checking of logic programs with respect to directional types that describe both the structure of terms and the directionality of predicates. The type checking problem is reduced to a decidable problem on systems of inclusion constraints over set expressions. We discuss some properties of the reduction algorithm, complexity, and present a proof of correctness. 1 1 Introduction Most logic programming languages are untyped. In Prolog, for example, it is considered meaningful to apply any n-ary predicate to any n-tuple of terms. However, it is generally accepted that static type checking has great advantages in detecting programming errors early and for generating efficient executable code. Motivated at least in part by the success of type systems for procedural and functional languages, there is currently considerable interest in finding appropriate definitions of type and welltyping for logic languages. This paper explores the type checki...

This article reports some results on this correlation in the context of logic programs. A formal notion of the "precision" of an analysis algorithm is proposed, and this is used to characterize the worst-case computational complexity of a number of dataflow analyses with different degrees of precision. While this article considers the analysis of logic programs, the technique proposed, namely the use of "exactness sets" to study relationships between complexity and precision of analyses, is not specific to logic programming in any way, and is equally applicable to flow analyses of other language families.

. Logic programs augmented with delay declarations form a higly expressive programming language in which dynamic networks of processes that communicate asynchronously by means of multiparty channels can be easily created. In this paper we study correctness these programs. In particular, we propose proof methods allowing us to deal with occur check freedom, absence of deadlock, absence of errors in presence of arithmetic relations, and termination. These methods turn out to be simple modifications of the corresponding methods dealing with Prolog programs. This allows us to derive correct delay declarations by analyzing Prolog programs. Finally, we point out difficulties concerning proofs of termination. Notes. The research of the first author was partly supported by the ESPRIT Basic Research Action 6810 (Compulog 2). This paper will appear as an invited lecture in: Proc. of the Fourth International Conference on Algebraic Methodology and Software Technology, (AMAST'95). 1 Introduction ...

Probabilistic Horn abduction is a simple framework to combine probabilistic and logical reasoning into a coherent practical framework. The numbers can be consistently interpreted probabilistically, and all of the rules can be interpreted logically. The relationship between probabilistic Horn abduction and logic programming is at two levels. At the first level probabilistic Horn abduction is an extension of pure Prolog, that is useful for diagnosis and other evidential reasoning tasks. At another level, current logic programming implementation techniques can be used to efficiently implement probabilistic Horn abduction. This forms the basis of an "anytime" algorithm for estimating arbitrary conditional probabilities. The focus of this paper is on the implementation. Scholar, Canadian Institute for Advanced Research Logic Programming, Abduction and Probability 2 1 Introduction Probabilistic Horn Abduction [22, 21, 23] is a framework for logic-based abduction that incorporates proba...

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Curry is a multi-paradigm declarative language aiming to amalgamate functional, logic, and concurrent programming paradigms. Curry combines in a seamless way features from functional programming and (concurrent) logic programming. Curry’s operational semantics is based on the combination of lazy reduction of expressions together with a possibly non-deterministic binding of free variables occurring in expressions. Moreover, (equational) constraints can be executed concurrently which provides for passive constraints and concurrent computation threads that are synchronized on logical variables. machine for executing Curry programs. The machine is designed to provide a link for compiling Curry programs into Java but it can also be a basis for implementations of Curry in other (object-oriented) languages. The main emphasis of the Java-based implementation is the exploitation of Java threads to implement the concurrent and nondeterministic features of Curry.

The efficiency of delay depends to a large extent on the following four basic operations: delay, wakeup, interrupt, and resume. Traditional implementations of delay in the WAM are slow because three out of the four basic operations need to save or restore the argument registers. In this paper, we present a novel method for implementing delay in a Prolog machine called ATOAM. The main idea is to store delayed calls as frames, called suspension frames, on the control stack rather than as records on the heap. Since delayed calls, after being woken, can be executed directly by using their suspension frames, the four basic operations become very simple. This method had been predicated to cost a large amount of control stack space. However, with tail-recursion elimination, the control stack space requirement can be reduced dramatically. This method has been implemented in the B-Prolog system. For several benchmark programs where delay is used, the experimental results show that B-Prolog is ...