The Tractability of Global Constraints

Abstract. Constraint propagation is one of the techniques central to the success of constraint programming. Fast algorithms are used to prune the search space either before or during backtracking search. Propagating global constraints is intractable in general. In this paper, we characterize a number of important questions related to constraint propagation. For example, we consider the two questions: “Is this problem generalized arc-consistent?” and “What are the maximal generalized arc-consistent domains?”. We identify dependencies between the tractability and intractability of these questions for finite domain variables. Finally, we prove intractability for a range of global constraints.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2004
• Where: CP
• Authors: Christian Bessière, Emmanuel Hebrard, Brahim Hnich, Toby Walsh
• Keywords: Constraint Programming, Constraint Propagation, CP 2004, Global Constraints, Programming Languages