Thom Frühwirth

The book provides a unified overview of concepts and features of a comprehensive variety of rule-based programming languages. They have applications in diverse areas such as workflow systems, the Semantic Web, decision support, optimization problems, simulation and modeling, software engineering, program verification and security, and artificial intelligence. Through clear definitions, helpful explanations, concrete examples and instructive exercises with selected solutions, the reader will gain a thorough understanding of rule-based formalisms, systems and programming languages. The rule-based formalisms presented are Multiset Transformation, Term Rewriting Systems, Colored Petri Nets and Logical Algorithms. The rule-based systems are Production Rules, Event-Condition-Action Rules and Datalog. The rule-based programming languages are Functional Programming, Constraint Logic Programming and Concurrent Constraint Programming. By embedding these approaches into Constraint Handling Rules, a powerful and versatile programming language, it provides a common platform for understanding and comparison as well as execution and analysis of rule-based approaches. The book is ideal for researchers, students and programmers who want to learn about the power and potential of rule-based programming and understand its characteristic features and abilities.

The use of constraints had its scientific and commercial breakthrough in the 1990s. Programming with constraints makes it possible to model and specify problems with uncertain, incomplete information and to solve combi­ natorial problems, as they are abundant in industry and commerce, such as scheduling, planning, transportation, resource allocation, layout, design, and analysis. This book is a short, concise, and complete presentation of constraint programming and reasoning, covering theoretical foundations, algorithms, implementations, examples, and applications. It is based on more than a decade of experience in teaching and research about this subject. This book is intended primarily for graduate students, researchers, and practitioners in diverse areas of computer science and related fields, including programming languages, computational logic, symbolic computation, and ar­ tificial intelligence. The book is complemented by a web-page with teaching material, software, links, and more. We take the reader on a step-by-step journey through the world of constraint-based programming and constraint reasoning. Feel free to join in ... Acknowledgements Thorn thanks his wife Andrea and his daughter Anna - for everything. He dedicates his contribution to the book to the memory of his mother, Grete. Slim thanks his wife N abila and his daughters Shirine and Amira for their ongoing support and patience.

Constraint Handling Rules (CHR) is both a theoretical formalism based on logic and a practical programming language based on rules. This book, written by the creator of CHR, describes the theory of CHR and how to use it in practice. It is supported by a website containing teaching materials, online demos, and free downloads of the language. After a basic tutorial, the author describes in detail the CHR language and discusses guaranteed properties of CHR programs. The author then compares CHR with other formalisms and languages and illustrates how it can capture their essential features. Finally, larger programs are introduced and analyzed in detail. The book is ideal for graduate students and lecturers, and for more experienced programmers and researchers, who can use it for self-study. Exercises with selected solutions, and bibliographic remarks are included at the ends of chapters. The book is the definitive reference on the subject.

The use of constraints had its scientific and commercial breakthrough in the 1990s. Programming with constraints makes it possible to model and specify problems with uncertain, incomplete information and to solve combi­ natorial problems, as they are abundant in industry and commerce, such as scheduling, planning, transportation, resource allocation, layout, design, and analysis. This book is a short, concise, and complete presentation of constraint programming and reasoning, covering theoretical foundations, algorithms, implementations, examples, and applications. It is based on more than a decade of experience in teaching and research about this subject. This book is intended primarily for graduate students, researchers, and practitioners in diverse areas of computer science and related fields, including programming languages, computational logic, symbolic computation, and ar­ tificial intelligence. The book is complemented by a web-page with teaching material, software, links, and more. We take the reader on a step-by-step journey through the world of constraint-based programming and constraint reasoning. Feel free to join in ... Acknowledgements Thorn thanks his wife Andrea and his daughter Anna - for everything. He dedicates his contribution to the book to the memory of his mother, Grete. Slim thanks his wife N abila and his daughters Shirine and Amira for their ongoing support and patience.

Das Buch gibt einen kompakten, aber umfassenden Überblick über das Problemlösen und Programmieren mit "Constraints" (Randbedingungen). Diese aktuelle Programmiermethodik ermöglicht es, Aufgaben direkt zu formulieren und effizient zu lösen. Sie gewinnt zusehends Bedeutung in Anwendungsbereichen wie Kombinatorische Suchprobleme (z.B. Zeitplanen, Layout-Optimierung), Berechnungen (Finanzanalyse), Simulation (Hardware-Verifikation) oder allgemein Schließen und Rechnen mit ungenauer oder unvollständiger Information (z.B. Kostenschätzung). Die theoretisch fundierte Darstellung mit Aufgaben und Anwendungsbeispielen aus der Praxis ist in der Lehre erprobt, aber auch für Forscher und Praktiker von Nutzen.