Using Commutativity Properties for Controlling Coercions

This paper investigates some soundness conditions which have to be fulfilled in systems with coercions and generic operators. A result of Reynolds on unrestricted generic operators is extended to generic operators which obey certain constraints. We get natural conditions for such operators, which are expressed within the theoretic framework of category theory. However, in the context of computer algebra, there arise examples of coercions and generic operators which do not fulfil these conditions. We describe a framework -- relaxing the above conditions -- that allows distinguishing between cases of ambiguities which can be resolved in a quite natural sense and those which cannot. An algorithm is presented that detects such unresolvable ambiguities in expressions.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 1994
• Where: AISC
• Authors: Stephan A. Missura, Andreas Weber
• Keywords: AISC 1994, Artificial Intelligence, Conditions, Generic Operators, Unrestricted Generic Operators