Integrating Finite Domain and Set Constraints into a Set-based Constraint Language

Issue title: Advances in Computational Logic (CIL C08)

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Bergenti, Federico | Dal Pal `, Alessandro | Rossi, Gianfranco

Affiliations: Dipartimento di Matematica Università degli Studi di Parma Viale G. P. Usberti 53, 43100 Parma, Italy. E-mail: gianfranco.rossi@unipr.it

Abstract: This paper summarizes a constraint solving technique that is used to reason effectively in the scope of a set-based constraint language that supersedes existing finite domain languages. The first part of this paper motivates the presented work and introduces the constraint language, namely the language of Hereditarily Finite Sets (HFS). Then, the proposed constraint solver is detailed in terms of a set of rewrite rules that exploit finite domain reasoning within the HFS language. The proposed solution improves previous work on CLP (SET) [11] by integrating intervals into the constraint system and by providing a new layered architecture for the solver that supports more effective constraint solving strategies. On the other hand, the proposed approach provides enhanced expressivity and flexibility of domain representation than those usually found in existing finite domain constraint solvers.

Keywords: Finite Domain constraints, Set Constraints, Hereditarily Finite Sets

DOI: 10.3233/FI-2009-177

Journal: Fundamenta Informaticae, vol. 96, no. 3, pp. 227-252, 2009