Although different satisfiability decision procedures
can be combined by algorithms such as those of Nelson-Oppen or
Shostak, current tools typically can only support a finite number of
theories to use in such combinations. To make SMT solving more
widely applicable, generic satisfiability algorithms that can
allow a potentially infinite number of decidable theories to be
user-definable, instead of needing to be built in by the
implementers, are highly desirable. This work studies how
folding variant narrowing, a generic
unification algorithm that offers
good extensibility in unification theory, can be extended to
a generic variant-based satisfiability algorithm for the initial
algebras of its user-specified input theories when such theories
satisfy Comon-Delaune's finite variant property (FVP) and some
extra conditions. Several, increasingly larger infinite classes of
theories whose initial algebras enjoy decidable variant-based satisfiability
are identified, and a method based on descent maps to bring other theories
into these classes and to improve the generic
algorithm's efficiency is proposed and illustrated with examples.Partially supported by NSF Grant CNS 13-19109.Ope
