Abstract

A set constraint is of the form exp 1 ' exp 2 where exp 1 and exp 2 are set expressions constructed using variables, function symbols, projection symbols, and the set union, intersection and complement symbols. While the satisfiability problem for such constraints is open, restricted classes have been useful in program analysis. The main result herein is a decision procedure for definite set constraints which are of the restricted form a ' exp where a contains only constants, variables and function symbols, and exp is a positive set expression (that is, it does not contain the complement symbol). A conjunction of such constraints, whenever satisfiable, has a least model and the algorithm will output an explicit representation of this model. 1 1 Introduction We consider a formalism for elementary set algebra which is useful for describing properties of programs whose underlying domain of computation is a Herbrand universe. The domain of discourse for this formalism is the powerset of...

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