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Constraint Programming pp 75–115Cite as

Constraint Hierarchies

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Part of the book series: NATO ASI Series ((NATO ASI F,volume 131))

Abstract

Constraints allow programmers and users to state declaratively a relation that should be maintained, rather than requiring them to write procedures to maintain the relation themselves. They are thus useful in such applications as programming languages, user interface toolkits, and simulation packages. In many situations, it is desirable to be able to state both required and preferential constraints. The required constraints must hold. Since the other constraints are merely preferences, the system should try to satisfy them if possible, but no error condition arises if it cannot. A constraint hierarchy consists of a set of constraints, each labeled as either required or preferred at some strength. An arbitrary number of different strengths is allowed. In the discussion of a theory of constraint hierarchies, we present alternate ways of selecting among competing possible solutions, and prove a number of propositions about the relations among these alternatives. We then outline algorithms for satisfying constraint hierarchies, and ways in which we have used constraint hierarchies in a number of programming languages and systems.

This paper was originally published in Lisp and Symbolic Computation, Vol. 5 No. 3 (September 1992), pages 223–270.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dept. of Computer Science & Engineering, FR-35, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, 98195, USA

    Alan Borning, Bjorn Freeman-Benson & Molly Wilson

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  1. Alan Borning
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  2. Bjorn Freeman-Benson
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  3. Molly Wilson
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Computer Science Department, Aarhus University, Ny Munkegade, Building 540, DK-8000, Aarhus C, Denmark

    Brian Mayoh

  2. Computer Science Department, Royal Institute of Technology, S-10044, Stockholm, Sweden

    Enn Tyugu

  3. Institute of Cybernetics, Estonian Academy of Sciences, 21 Adadeemia tee, EE-0026, Tallinn, Estonia

    Jaan Penjam

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© 1994 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Borning, A., Freeman-Benson, B., Wilson, M. (1994). Constraint Hierarchies. In: Mayoh, B., Tyugu, E., Penjam, J. (eds) Constraint Programming. NATO ASI Series, vol 131. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-85983-0_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-85983-0_4

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