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Logic program specialisation through partial deduction: Control issues

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 July 2002

MICHAEL LEUSCHEL
Affiliation:
Department of Electronics & Computer Science, University of Southampton, Highfield SO17 1BJ, UK
MAURICE BRUYNOOGHE
Affiliation:
Department of Computer Science, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Celestijnenlaan 200A, B-3001 Heverlee, Belgium

Abstract

Program specialisation aims at improving the overall performance of programs by performing source to source transformations. A common approach within functional and logic programming, known respectively as partial evaluation and partial deduction, is to exploit partial knowledge about the input. It is achieved through a well-automated application of parts of the Burstall-Darlington unfold/fold transformation framework. The main challenge in developing systems is to design automatic control that ensures correctness, efficiency, and termination. This survey and tutorial presents the main developments in controlling partial deduction over the past 10 years and analyses their respective merits and shortcomings. It ends with an assessment of current achievements and sketches some remaining research challenges.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© 2002 Cambridge University Press

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