A practical approach to the global analysis of CLP programs
María García de la Banda, Manuel V. Hermenegildo · 1993
This paper presents and illustrates with an example a practical approach to the dataflow analysis of programs written in constraint logic programming (CLP) languages using abstract interpretation. It is first argued that, from the framework point of view, it suffices to propose relatively simple extensions of traditional analysis methods which have already been proved useful and practical and for which efficient fixpoint algorithms have been developed. This is shown by proposing a simple but quite general extension of Bruynooghe's traditional framework to the analysis of CLP programs. In this extension constraints are viewed not as "suspended goals" but rather as new information in the store, following the traditional view of CLP. Using this approach, and as an example of its use, a complete, constraint system independent, abstract analysis is presented for approximating definiteness information. The analysis is in fact of quite general applicability. It has been implemented and used i...