Unification-Free Prolog Programs Revisited
Sandro Etalle · TU/e Research Portal · 1996
In this article are provided new simple conditions which allow us to conclude that in case of several well-known Prolog programs the unication algorithm can be replaced by iterated matching. As already noticed by other researchers, such a replacement oers a possibility of improving the eciency of program's execution. The results we prove improve on those in our previous paper ([AE93]) both because (in most cases) they allow to prove unication-freeness for a larger class of programs and queries and because they require far less machinery. In particular, the conditions we provide are always checkable in an automatic way. 1991 Mathematics Subject Classication: 68Q40, 68T15, 68N15. CR Categories: D.1.6, F.3.2., F.4.1, H.3.3, I.2.3. Keywords and Phrases: iterated matching, Prolog programs. 1 Introduction Unication is the core of the resolution method employed by Prolog, and its eciency has great inuence on the overall performance of the interpreter. The best sequential uni...