1,473 research outputs found
Inferring Termination Conditions for Logic Programs using Backwards Analysis
This paper focuses on the inference of modes for which a logic program is
guaranteed to terminate. This generalises traditional termination analysis
where an analyser tries to verify termination for a specified mode. Our
contribution is a methodology in which components of traditional termination
analysis are combined with backwards analysis to obtain an analyser for
termination inference. We identify a condition on the components of the
analyser which guarantees that termination inference will infer all modes which
can be checked to terminate. The application of this methodology to enhance a
traditional termination analyser to perform also termination inference is
demonstrated
A Backward Analysis for Constraint Logic Programs
One recurring problem in program development is that of understanding how to
re-use code developed by a third party. In the context of (constraint) logic
programming, part of this problem reduces to figuring out how to query a
program. If the logic program does not come with any documentation, then the
programmer is forced to either experiment with queries in an ad hoc fashion or
trace the control-flow of the program (backward) to infer the modes in which a
predicate must be called so as to avoid an instantiation error. This paper
presents an abstract interpretation scheme that automates the latter technique.
The analysis presented in this paper can infer moding properties which if
satisfied by the initial query, come with the guarantee that the program and
query can never generate any moding or instantiation errors. Other applications
of the analysis are discussed. The paper explains how abstract domains with
certain computational properties (they condense) can be used to trace
control-flow backward (right-to-left) to infer useful properties of initial
queries. A correctness argument is presented and an implementation is reported.Comment: 32 page
Inference of termination conditions for numerical loops in Prolog
We present a new approach to termination analysis of numerical computations
in logic programs. Traditional approaches fail to analyse them due to non
well-foundedness of the integers. We present a technique that allows overcoming
these difficulties. Our approach is based on transforming a program in a way
that allows integrating and extending techniques originally developed for
analysis of numerical computations in the framework of query-mapping pairs with
the well-known framework of acceptability. Such an integration not only
contributes to the understanding of termination behaviour of numerical
computations, but also allows us to perform a correct analysis of such
computations automatically, by extending previous work on a constraint-based
approach to termination. Finally, we discuss possible extensions of the
technique, including incorporating general term orderings.Comment: To appear in Theory and Practice of Logic Programming. To appear in
Theory and Practice of Logic Programmin
Non-Termination Inference of Logic Programs
We present a static analysis technique for non-termination inference of logic
programs. Our framework relies on an extension of the subsumption test, where
some specific argument positions can be instantiated while others are
generalized. We give syntactic criteria to statically identify such argument
positions from the text of a program. Atomic left looping queries are generated
bottom-up from selected subsets of the binary unfoldings of the program of
interest. We propose a set of correct algorithms for automating the approach.
Then, non-termination inference is tailored to attempt proofs of optimality of
left termination conditions computed by a termination inference tool. An
experimental evaluation is reported. When termination and non-termination
analysis produce complementary results for a logic procedure, then with respect
to the leftmost selection rule and the language used to describe sets of atomic
queries, each analysis is optimal and together, they induce a characterization
of the operational behavior of the logic procedure.Comment: Long version (algorithms and proofs included) of a paper submitted to
TOPLA
Non-leftmost Unfolding in Partial Evaluation of Logic Programs with Impure Predicates
Abstract. Partial evaluation of logic programs which contain impure predicates poses non-trivial challenges. Impure predicates include those which produce side-effects, raise errors (or exceptions), and those whose truth value varies according to the degree of instantiation of arguments 4. In particular, non-leftmost unfolding steps can produce incorrect results since the independence of the computation rule no longer holds in the presence of impure predicates. Existing proposals allow non-leftmost unfolding steps, but at the cost of accuracy: bindings and failure are not propagated backwards to predicates which are potentially impure. In this work we propose a partial evaluation scheme which substantially reduces the situations in which such backpropagation has to be avoided. With this aim, our partial evaluator takes into account the information about purity of predicates expressed in terms of assertions. This allows achieving some optimizations which are not feasible using existing partial evaluation techniques. We argue that our proposal goes beyond existing ones in that it is a) accurate, since the classification of pure vs impure is done at the level of atoms instead of predicates, b) extensible, as the information about purity can be added to programs using assertions without having to modify the partial evaluator itself, and c) automatic, since (backwards) analysis can be used to automatically infer the required assertions. Our approach has been implemented in the context of CiaoPP, the abstract interpretation-based preprocessor of the Ciao logic programming system.
Transforming floundering into success
We show how logic programs with "delays" can be transformed to programs
without delays in a way which preserves information concerning floundering
(also known as deadlock). This allows a declarative (model-theoretic),
bottom-up or goal independent approach to be used for analysis and debugging of
properties related to floundering. We rely on some previously introduced
restrictions on delay primitives and a key observation which allows properties
such as groundness to be analysed by approximating the (ground) success set.
This paper is to appear in Theory and Practice of Logic Programming (TPLP).
Keywords: Floundering, delays, coroutining, program analysis, abstract
interpretation, program transformation, declarative debuggingComment: Number of pages: 24 Number of figures: 9 Number of tables: non
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