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Evaluating CDCL Variable Scoring Schemes

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Theory and Applications of Satisfiability Testing -- SAT 2015 (SAT 2015)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNTCS,volume 9340))

Abstract

The VSIDS (variable state independent decaying sum) decision heuristic invented in the context of the CDCL (conflict-driven clause learning) SAT solver Chaff, is considered crucial for achieving high efficiency of modern SAT solvers on application benchmarks. This paper proposes ACIDS (average conflict-index decision score), a variant of VSIDS. The ACIDS heuristics is compared to the original implementation of VSIDS, its popular modern implementation EVSIDS (exponential VSIDS), the VMTF (variable move-to-front) scheme, and other related decision heuristics. They all share the important principle to select those variables as decisions, which recently participated in conflicts. The main goal of the paper is to provide an empirical evaluation to serve as a starting point for trying to understand the reason for the efficiency of these decision heuristics. In our experiments, it turns out that EVSIDS, VMTF, ACIDS behave very similarly, if implemented carefully.

Supported by Austrian Science Fund (FWF), national research network RiSE (S11408-N23). Builds on discussions from the 2014 workshop on Theoretical Foundations of Applied SAT Solving (14w5101), hosted by Banff International Research Station, and Dagstuhl Seminar 15171 (2015), Theory and Practice of SAT Solving.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Johannes Kepler University, Linz, Austria

    Armin Biere & Andreas Fröhlich

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  1. Armin Biere
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  2. Andreas Fröhlich
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Correspondence to Armin Biere .

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  1. Algorithms, University of Texas, Austin, Texas, USA

    Marijn Heule

  2. Trusted Systems Research Group, Fort Meade, Texas, USA

    Sean Weaver

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Biere, A., Fröhlich, A. (2015). Evaluating CDCL Variable Scoring Schemes. In: Heule, M., Weaver, S. (eds) Theory and Applications of Satisfiability Testing -- SAT 2015. SAT 2015. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 9340. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-24318-4_29

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-24318-4_29

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