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International Static Analysis Symposium

SAS 1995: Static Analysis pp 154–171Cite as

Termination analysis for functional programs using term orderings

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Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 983))

Abstract

To prove the termination of a functional program there has to be a well-founded ordering such that the arguments in each recursive call are smaller than the corresponding inputs. In this paper we present a procedure for automated termination proofs of functional programs. In contrast to previously presented methods a suited well-founded ordering does not have to be fixed in advance by the user, but can be synthesized automatically.

For that purpose we use approaches developed in the area of term rewriting systems for the automated generation of suited well-founded term orderings. But unfortunately term orderings cannot be directly used for termination proofs of functional programs which call other algorithms in the arguments of their recursive calls. The reason is that while for the termination of term rewriting systems orderings between terms are needed, for functional programs we need orderings between objects of algebraic data types. Our method solves this problem and enables term orderings to be used for termination proofs of functional programs.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. FB Informatik, Technische Hochschule Darmstadt, Alexanderstr. 10, 64283, Darmstadt, Germany

    Jürgen Giesl

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  1. Jürgen Giesl
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Alan Mycroft

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© 1995 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Giesl, J. (1995). Termination analysis for functional programs using term orderings. In: Mycroft, A. (eds) Static Analysis. SAS 1995. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 983. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-60360-3_38

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-60360-3_38

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-60360-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-45050-4

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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