Tabling, Rational Terms, and Coinduction Finally Together!. Issue 4 (21st July 2014)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: MANTADELIS, THEOFRASTOS; ROCHA, RICARDO; MOURA, PAULO; Leuschel, Michael; Schrijvers, Tom
• Is Part Of: Theory and practice of logic programming. Volume 14:Issue 4/5(2014)
• Page Start: 429
• Page End: 443
• Publication Date: 2014-07-21
• Subjects: Logic programming -- Periodicals; Artificial intelligence -- Computer programs -- Periodicals; Constraint programming (Computer science) -- Periodicals; 005.115
• DOI: 10.1017/S147106841400012X
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1471-0684

Abstract

<abstract abstract-type="normal"> <title>Abstract</title> <p>Tabling is a commonly used technique in logic programming for avoiding cyclic behavior of logic programs and enabling more declarative program definitions. Furthermore, tabling often improves computational performance. Rational term are terms with one or more infinite sub-terms but with a finite representation. Rational terms can be generated in Prolog by omitting the occurs check when unifying two terms. Applications of rational terms include definite clause grammars, constraint handling systems, and coinduction. In this paper, we report our extension of YAP's Prolog tabling mechanism to support rational terms. We describe the internal representation of rational terms within the table space and prove its correctness. We then use this extension to implement a tabling based approach to coinduction. We compare our approach with current coinductive transformations and describe the implementation. In addition, we present an algorithm that ensures a canonical representation for rational terms.</p> </abstract>