Proof Theory at Work: Complexity Analysis of Term Rewrite Systems

This thesis is concerned with investigations into the "complexity of term rewriting systems". Moreover the majority of the presented work deals with the "automation" of such a complexity analysis. The aim of this introduction is to present the main ideas in an easily accessible fashion to make the result presented accessible to the general public. Necessarily some technical points are stated in an over-simplified way.Comment: Cumulative Habilitation Thesis, submitted to the University of Innsbruc

A Combination Framework for Complexity

In this paper we present a combination framework for polynomial complexity analysis of term rewrite systems. The framework covers both derivational and runtime complexity analysis. We present generalisations of powerful complexity techniques, notably a generalisation of complexity pairs and (weak) dependency pairs. Finally, we also present a novel technique, called dependency graph decomposition, that in the dependency pair setting greatly increases modularity. We employ the framework in the automated complexity tool TCT. TCT implements a majority of the techniques found in the literature, witnessing that our framework is general enough to capture a very brought setting

A Complexity Preserving Transformation from Jinja Bytecode to Rewrite Systems

We revisit known transformations from Jinja bytecode to rewrite systems from the viewpoint of runtime complexity. Suitably generalising the constructions proposed in the literature, we define an alternative representation of Jinja bytecode (JBC) executions as "computation graphs" from which we obtain a novel representation of JBC executions as "constrained rewrite systems". We prove non-termination and complexity preservation of the transformation. We restrict to well-formed JBC programs that only make use of non-recursive methods and expect tree-shaped objects as input. Our approach allows for simplified correctness proofs and provides a framework for the combination of the computation graph method with standard techniques from static program analysis like for example "reachability analysis".Comment: 36 page

Modular Complexity Analysis for Term Rewriting

All current investigations to analyze the derivational complexity of term rewrite systems are based on a single termination method, possibly preceded by transformations. However, the exclusive use of direct criteria is problematic due to their restricted power. To overcome this limitation the article introduces a modular framework which allows to infer (polynomial) upper bounds on the complexity of term rewrite systems by combining different criteria. Since the fundamental idea is based on relative rewriting, we study how matrix interpretations and match-bounds can be used and extended to measure complexity for relative rewriting, respectively. The modular framework is proved strictly more powerful than the conventional setting. Furthermore, the results have been implemented and experiments show significant gains in power.Comment: 33 pages; Special issue of RTA 201

The Derivational Complexity Induced by the Dependency Pair Method

We study the derivational complexity induced by the dependency pair method, enhanced with standard refinements. We obtain upper bounds on the derivational complexity induced by the dependency pair method in terms of the derivational complexity of the base techniques employed. In particular we show that the derivational complexity induced by the dependency pair method based on some direct technique, possibly refined by argument filtering, the usable rules criterion, or dependency graphs, is primitive recursive in the derivational complexity induced by the direct method. This implies that the derivational complexity induced by a standard application of the dependency pair method based on traditional termination orders like KBO, LPO, and MPO is exactly the same as if those orders were applied as the only termination technique

Analysing the Complexity of Functional Programs: Higher-Order Meets First-Order

International audienceWe show how the complexity of higher-order functional programs can be analysed automatically by applying program transformations to a defunctionalized versions of them, and feeding the result to existing tools for the complexity analysis of first-order term rewrite systems. This is done while carefully analysing complexity preservation and reflection of the employed transformations such that the complexity of the obtained term rewrite system reflects on the complexity of the initial program. Further, we describe suitable strategies for the application of the studied transformations and provide ample experimental data for assessing the viability of our method