Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 May 2009
Throughout we assume all rings are commutative with identity. We denote the lattice of ideals of a ring R by L(R), and we denote by L(R)* the subposet L(R) − R.
A classical result of commutative ring theory is the characterization of a Dedekind domain as an integral domain R in which every element of L(R)* is a product of prime ideals (see Mori [5] for a history). This result has been generalized in a number of ways. In particular, rings which are not necessarily domains but which otherwise satisfy the hypotheses (i.e. general ZPI-rings) have been widely studied (see, for example, Gilmer [3]), as have rings in which only the principal ideals are assumed to satisfy the hypothesis (i.e. π-rings).