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Foundations of Logic and Functional Programming pp 114–139Cite as

Rule rewriting methods for efficient implementations of horn logic

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Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 306))

Abstract

This paper treats the problem of implementing efficiently queries expressed in a Horn clause based language when recursive predicates, possibly with function symbols, are present. The proposed approach takes the naive fixpoint computation that realizes the minimum model semantics of the given program and transforms it into a computation that terminates and executes efficiently. Rule rewriting scripts, called methods, are used for these transformations; different methods are selected according to the patterns of free and bound variables appearing in the given recursive goal. One method, known as Seminaive Fixpoint, applies to the situation where no argument is bound in the recursive goal. The remaining methods are meant for queries where the initial bindings of the arguments in the recursive goal can be used to improve the efficiency and, often, to guarantee the termination of the computation. The general solution used for these queries consists of implementing the recursive predicate as a cascade of two fixpoint computations. Various methods proposed along these lines are studied and compared, including the magic set method, the counting method and the magic counting method. These methods are implemented as rule rewriting transformations which compile a given program into a safe and efficient implementation.

Part of this work was done while this author was visiting at MCC.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. MCC, Austin, Texas, USA

    Carlo Zaniolo

  2. University of Calabria, Rende, Italy

    Domenico Saccà

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  1. Carlo Zaniolo
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  2. Domenico Saccà
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Mauro Boscarol Luigia Carlucci Aiello Giorgio Levi

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© 1988 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Zaniolo, C., Saccà, D. (1988). Rule rewriting methods for efficient implementations of horn logic. In: Boscarol, M., Carlucci Aiello, L., Levi, G. (eds) Foundations of Logic and Functional Programming. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 306. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-19129-1_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-19129-1_5

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-19129-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-39126-5

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