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Proving Termination for Logic Programs by the Query-Mapping Pairs Approach

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Book cover Program Development in Computational Logic

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 3049))

Abstract

This paper describes a method for proving termination of queries to logic programs based on abstract interpretation. The method uses query-mapping pairs to abstract the relation between calls in the LD-tree associated with the program and query. Any well founded partial order for terms can be used to prove the termination. The ideas of the query-mapping pairs approach have been implemented in SICStus Prolog in a system called TermiLog, which is available on the web. Given a program and query pattern the system either answers that the query terminates or that there may be non-termination. The advantages of the method are its conceptual simplicity and the fact that it does not impose any restrictions on the programs.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Computer Science and Engineering, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem, 91904, Israel

    Naomi Lindenstrauss & Yehoshua Sagiv

  2. École Polytechnique (STIX), 91128, Palaiseau Cedex, France

    Alexander Serebrenik

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  1. Naomi Lindenstrauss
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  2. Yehoshua Sagiv
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  3. Alexander Serebrenik
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium

    Maurice Bruynooghe

  2. School of Computer Science, The University of Manchester, M13 9PL, Manchester, United Kingdom

    Kung-Kiu Lau

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Lindenstrauss, N., Sagiv, Y., Serebrenik, A. (2004). Proving Termination for Logic Programs by the Query-Mapping Pairs Approach. In: Bruynooghe, M., Lau, KK. (eds) Program Development in Computational Logic. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 3049. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-25951-0_14

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