Advanced Logic Program Specialisation

Abstract

In first part of this course [28] we have laid the theoretical foundations for logic program specialisation, notably introducing the technique of partial deduction along with some basic techniques to automatically control it. In this part of the course we first present in Section 2 an advanced way of controlling polyvariance based upon characteristic trees. We then show in Section 3 how partial deduction can be extended into conjunctive partial deduction, incorporating much of the power of unfold/fold program transformation techniques, such as tupling and deforestation, while keeping the automatic control of partial deduction. Finally, in Section 4 we elaborate on combining abstract interpretation with conjunctive partial deduction, showing how together they are more powerful than either method alone.