Pruning in the Extended Andorra Model

One of the major problems that actual logic programming systems have to address is whether and how to prune undesirable parts of the search space. A region of the search space would definitely be undesirable if it can only repeat previously found solutions, or if it is well-known that the whole computation will fail. Or it may be the case that we are interested in a subset of solutions. In this work we discuss how the BEAM addresses pruning issues. The BEAM is an implementation of David Warren’s Extended Andorra Model. Because the BEAM relies on a very flexible execution mechanism, all cases of pruning discussed above should be considered. We show that all these different forms of pruning can be supported, and study their impact in applications.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2004
• Where: PADL
• Authors: Ricardo Lopes, Vítor Santos Costa, Fernando M. A. Silva
• Keywords: Actual Logic Programming, PADL 2004, Programming Languages, Pruning, Search Space