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Detection and optimization of functional computations in Prolog

  • Session 5a: Program Analysis
  • Conference paper
  • First Online:
Third International Conference on Logic Programming (ICLP 1986)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 225))

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Abstract

While the ability to simulate nondeterminism and return multiple outputs for a single input is a powerful and attractive feature of Prolog, it is expensive both in time and space. Since Prolog programs are very often functional, i.e. do not produce more than one distinct output for a single input, this overhead is especially undesirable. This paper describes how a program may be analyzed statically to determine which literals and predicates are functional, and how the program may then be optimized using this information. Our notion of “functionality” subsumes the notion of “determinacy” that has been considered by various researchers. Our algorithms are less reliant on features such as cut, and thus extend more easily to parallel execution strategies than others that have been proposed.

This work was supported in part by the National Science Foundation under grant number DCR-8407688.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, State University of New York at Stony Brook, 11794, Stony Brook, NY

    Saumya K. Debray & David S. Warren

Authors
  1. Saumya K. Debray
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  2. David S. Warren
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Editor information

Ehud Shapiro

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© 1986 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Debray, S.K., Warren, D.S. (1986). Detection and optimization of functional computations in Prolog. In: Shapiro, E. (eds) Third International Conference on Logic Programming. ICLP 1986. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 225. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-16492-8_97

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-16492-8_97

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-16492-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-39831-8

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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