Types In Logic Programming

This collection of original research papers assesses and summarizes the impact of types on logic programming. Type theory is a well-established branch of theoretical computer science that has played an important role in the development of imperative and functional programming languages. This collection of original research papers assesses and summarizes the impact of types on logic programming. It covers all of the major themes in this burgeoning field, including simple types, regular tree types, polymorphic types, subtypes, and dependent types. Language design issues as well as semantics, pragmatics, and applications of types are discussed.The benefits that type considerations have to offer logic programming are being increasingly realized: through type checking many errors can be caught before a program is run, resulting in more reliable programs; types form an expressive basis for module systems, since they prescribe a machine-verifiable interface for the code encapsulated within a module; and types may be used to improve performance of code generated by a compiler. The research in this collection describes these benefits as well as important differences in the impact of types in functional and logic programming.

This collection of original research papers assesses and summarizes the impact of types on logic programming. Type theory is a well-established branch of theoretical computer science that has played an important role in the development of imperative and functional programming languages. This collection of original research papers assesses and summarizes the impact of types on logic programming. It covers all of the major themes in this burgeoning field, including simple types, regular tree types, polymorphic types, subtypes, and dependent types. Language design issues as well as semantics, pragmatics, and applications of types are discussed.The benefits that type considerations have to offer logic programming are being increasingly realized: through type checking many errors can be caught before a program is run, resulting in more reliable programs; types form an expressive basis for module systems, since they prescribe a machine-verifiable interface for the code encapsulated within a module; and types may be used to improve performance of code generated by a compiler. The research in this collection describes these benefits as well as important differences in the impact of types in functional and logic programming.

This text aims at promoting a convergence between the technical challenges of developing advanced software systems and the formal techniques, tools and features evolving from the logic programming paradigm. It provides contributions towards different apsects of logic programming.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 5th International Symposium on Functional and Logic Programming, FLOPS 2001, held in Tokyo, Japan in March 2001. The 21 revised full papers presented together with three invited papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 40 submissions. The book offers topical sections on functional programming, logic programming, functional logic programming, types, program analysis and transformation, and Lambda calculus.

Representation and reasoning; Logic programs; Programming style; Data structures; Program verification; Formal program synthesis; Implementation; Broader contributions to computing.

Written for those who wish to learn Prolog as a powerful software development tool, but do not necessarily have any background in logic or AI. Includes a full glossary of the technical terms and self-assessment exercises.