SAT Solving for Argument Filterings

This paper introduces a propositional encoding for lexicographic path orders in connection with dependency pairs. This facilitates the application of SAT solvers for termination analysis of term rewrite systems based on the dependency pair method. We address two main inter-related issues and encode them as satisfiability problems of propositional formulas that can be efficiently handled by SAT solving: (1) the combined search for a lexicographic path order together with an \emph{argument filtering} to orient a set of inequalities; and (2) how the choice of the argument filtering influences the set of inequalities that have to be oriented. We have implemented our contributions in the termination prover AProVE. Extensive experiments show that by our encoding and the application of SAT solvers one obtains speedups in orders of magnitude as well as increased termination proving power

The dependency pair framework: Combining techniques for automated termination proofs

Abstract. The dependency pair approach is one of the most powerful techniques for automated termination proofs of term rewrite systems. Up to now, it was regarded as one of several possible methods to prove termination. In this paper, we show that dependency pairs can instead be used as a general concept to integrate arbitrary techniques for termination analysis. In this way, the benefits of different techniques can be combined and their modularity and power are increased significantly. We refer to this new concept as the “dependency pair framework ” to distinguish it from the old “dependency pair approach”. Moreover, this framework facilitates the development of new methods for termination analysis. To demonstrate this, we present several new techniques within the dependency pair framework which simplify termination problems considerably. We implemented the dependency pair framework in our termination prover AProVE and evaluated it on large collections of examples.

A Dependency Pair Framework for AvC-Termination

The development of powerful techniques for proving termination of rewriting modulo a set of equational axioms is essential when dealing with rewriting logic-based programming languages like CafeOBJ, Maude, ELAN, OBJ, etc. One of the most important techniques for proving termination over a wide range of variants of rewriting (strategies) is the dependency pair approach. Several works have tried to adapt it to rewriting modulo associative and commutative (AC) equational theories, and even to more general theories. However, as we discuss in this paper, no appropriate notion of minimality (and minimal chain of dependency pairs) which is well-suited to develop a dependency pair framework has been proposed to date. In this paper we carefully analyze the structure of in nite rewrite sequences for rewrite theories whose equational part is any combination of associativity and/or commutativity axioms, which we call AvC-rewrite theories. Our analysis leads to a more accurate and optimized notion of dependency pairs through the new notion of stably minimal term. We then develop a suitable dependency pair framework for proving termination of AvC-rewrite theories.Alarcón Jiménez, B.; Gutiérrez Gil, R.; Lucas, S.; Meseguer, J. (2011). A Dependency Pair Framework for AvC-Termination. http://hdl.handle.net/10251/1079

The 2D Dependency Pair Framework for Conditional Rewrite Systems¿Part II: Advanced Processors and Implementation Techniques

[EN] Proving termination of programs in `real-life¿ rewriting-based languages like CafeOBJ, Haskell, Maude, etc., is an important subject of research. To advance this goal, faithfully cap- turing the impact in the termination behavior of the main language features (e.g., conditions in program rules) is essential. In Part I of this work, we have introduced a 2D Dependency Pair Framework for automatically proving termination properties of Conditional Term Rewriting Systems. Our framework relies on the notion of processor as the main practical device to deal with proofs of termination properties of conditional rewrite systems. Processors are used to decompose and simplify the proofs in a divide and conquer approach. With the basic proof framework defined in Part I, here we introduce new processors to further improve the abil- ity of the 2D Dependency Pair Framework to deal with proofs of termination properties of conditional rewrite systems. We also discuss relevant implementation techniques to use such processors in practice.Partially supported by the EU (FEDER) and projects RTI2018-094403-B-C32, PROMETEO/2019/098, SP20180225. Jose Meseguer was supported by grants NSF CNS 13-19109 and NRL N00173-17-1-G002. Salvador Lucas' research was partly developed during a sabbatical year at the UIUC.Lucas Alba, S.; Meseguer, J.; Gutiérrez Gil, R. (2020). The 2D Dependency Pair Framework for Conditional Rewrite Systems¿Part II: Advanced Processors and Implementation Techniques. Journal of Automated Reasoning. 64(8):1611-1662. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10817-020-09542-3S16111662648Arts, T., Giesl, J.: Termination of term rewriting using dependency pairs. Theor. Comput. Sci. 236(1–2), 133–178 (2000)Alarcón, B., Gutiérrez, R., Lucas, S., Navarro-Marset, R.: Proving termination properties with MU-TERM. In: Proceedings of AMAST’10, LNCS, vol. 6486, pp. 201–208 (2011)Baader, F., Nipkow, T.: Term Rewriting and all That. 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Reason. 40(2–3), 195–220 (2008)Giesl, J., Schneider-Kamp, P., Thiemann, R.: AProVE 1.2: Automatic Termination proofs in the dependency pair framework. In: Proceeding of IJCAR’06, LNAI, vol. 4130, pp. 281–286 (2006)Giesl, J., Thiemann, R., Schneider-Kamp, P.: The dependency pair framework: combining techniques for automated termination proofs. In: Proceedings of LPAR’04, LNAI, vol. 3452, pp. 301–331 (2004)Giesl, J., Thiemann, R., Schneider-Kamp, P., Falke, S.: Mechanizing and improving dependency pairs. J. Autom. Reason. 37(3), 155–203 (2006)Goguen, J., Meseguer, J.: Models and equality for logical programming. In: Proceedings of TAPSOFT’87, LNCS, vol. 250, pp. 1–22 (1987)Gutiérrez, R., Lucas, S.: Automatic generation of logical models with AGES. In: Proceedings of CADE 2019, LNCS, vol. 11716, pp. 287–299 (2019). Tool page: http://zenon.dsic.upv.es/ages/Hirokawa, N., Middeldorp, A.: Dependency pairs revisited. 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Improved Modular Termination Proofs Using Dependency Pairs

The dependency pair approach is one of the most powerful techniques for automated (innermost) termination proofs of term rewrite systems (TRSs). For any TRS, it generates inequality constraints that have to be satisfied by well-founded orders. However, proving innermost termination is considerably easier than termination, since the constraints for innermost termination are a subset of those for termination

Improved Modular Termination Proofs Using Dependency Pairs?

Abstract. The dependency pair approach is one of the most powerful techniques for automated (innermost) termination proofs of term rewrite systems (TRSs). For any TRS, it generates inequality constraints that have to be satisfied by well-founded orders. However, proving innermost termination is considerably easier than termination, since the constraints for innermost termination are a subset of those for termination. We show that surprisingly, the dependency pair approach for termination can be improved by only generating the same constraints as for innermost termination. In other words, proving full termination becomes virtually as easy as proving innermost termination. Our results are based on splitting the termination proof into several modular independent subproofs. We implemented our contributions in the automated termination prover AProVE and evaluated them on large collections of examples. These experiments show that our improvements increase the power and efficiency of automated termination proving substantially. 1 Introduction Most traditional methods for automated termination proofs of TRSs use simplifi-cation orders [7, 26], where a term is greater than its proper subterms (subterm property). However, there are numerous important TRSs which are not simplyterminating, i.e., termination cannot be shown by simplification orders. Therefore, the dependency pair approach [2, 10, 11] was developed which considerablyincreases the class of systems where termination is provable mechanically. Example 1. The following variant of an example from [2] is not simply terminat-ing, sinc

Towards a Framework for Proving Termination of Maude Programs

Maude es un lenguaje de programación declarativo basado en la lógica de reescritura que incorpora muchas características que lo hacen muy potente. Sin embargo, a la hora de probar ciertas propiedades computacionales esto conlleva dificultades. La tarea de probar la terminación de sistemas de reesctritura es de hecho bastante dura, pero aplicada a lenguajes de programación reales se concierte en más complicada debido a estas características inherentes. Esto provoca que métodos para probar la terminación de este tipo de programas requieran técnicas específicas y un análisis cuidadoso. Varios trabajos han intentado probar terminación de (un subconjunto de) programas Maude. Sin embargo, todos ellos siguen una aproximación transformacional, donde el programa original es trasformado hasta alcanzar un sistema de reescritura capaz de ser manejado con las técnicas y herramientas de terminación existentes. En la práctica, el hecho de transformar los sistemas originales suele complicar la demostración de la terminación ya que esto introduce nuevos símbolos y reglas en el sistema. En esta tesis, llevamos a cabo el problema de probar terminación de (un subconjunto de) programas Maude mediante métodos directos. Por un lado, nos centramos en la estrategia de Maude. Maude es un lenguaje impaciente donde los argumentos de una función son evaluados siempre antes de la aplicación de la función que los usa. Esta estrategia (conocida como llamada por valor) puede provocar la no terminación si los programas no están escritos cuidadosamente. Por esta razón, Maude (en concreto) incorpora mecanismos para controlar la ejecución de programas como las anotaciones sintácticas que están asociadas a los argumentos de los símbolos. En reescritura, esta estrategia sería conocida como reescritura sensible al contexto innermost (RSCI). Por otro lado, Maude también incorpora la posibilidad de declarar atributos.Alarcón Jiménez, B. (2011). Towards a Framework for Proving Termination of Maude Programs [Tesis doctoral no publicada]. Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/Thesis/10251/11003Palanci