Smolka, G.

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J. Symbolic Computation (1998) 25, 395
Special Issue on Order-sorted Rewriting
Foreword of the Guest Editor
Equational logic is ubiquitous in computer science. It is the basis for algebraic speci-
cation, rewriting, unication, and equational programming. These techniques evolved in
a many-sorted setting, where dierent sorts are disjoint. Joseph Goguen observed that
an order-sorted equational logic modelling sort inclusion would yield a more expressive
and natural specication language. In the 1980s, Goguen and Meseguer initiated and
sponsored an international collaboration on the development of an executable specica-
tion language OBJ based on order-sorted equational logic, prompting foundational work
on order-sorted rewriting and unication. Order-sorted rewrite systems can be seen as a
special class of conditional rewrite systems. As it turns out, the expressiveness of order-
sorted logic results in considerable complications as it comes to confluence, critical pair
analysis and completion of order-sorted rewrite systems.
The four papers of this special issue are concerned with three dierent approaches to
order-sorted rewriting and completion. They represent the state of the art of the area
and show its wealth and depth.
I would like to thank the authors and the referees of the papers for their considerable
eorts that have led to this special issue.
Gert Smolka
Universita¨t des Saarlandes, Germany
0747{7171/97/040395 + 01 $25.00/0 sy980184 c© 1998 Academic Press Limited


Special Issue on Order-sorted Rewriting: Foreword of the Guest Editor 

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Special Issue on Order-sorted Rewriting: Foreword of the Guest Editor

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