Essentials of Constraint Programming

Press Commentaries

…a very valuable book that I wholeheartedly recommend… Eric Monfory in Journal TPLP(4)3:381-382, 2004.

Anybody looking for a formal, essential but never-shallow introduction to the field should definitely consider this book. Rosella Gennari in Journal of Logic, Language and Information (JOLLI), 2004.

…a truly concise summary of constraint-based logic programming… comprehensive… by far the best summarization… Bernard M. Kuc in ACM Computing Reviews, 2004.

Contents

The formally well-founded presentation introduces the common classes of constraint programming languages and constraint systems in a uniform way. It also includes application examples from real life. We first introduce the basic ideas behind the family of (concurrent) constraint logic programming languages in a calculus-based framework. Constraint solving algorithms are specified and implemented in the constraint handling rules language (CHR) in a uniform high-level executable notation. The most common constraint domains, their solvers and applications such as Boolean constraints for circuit design, terms and trees for unification, linear polynomial equations for financial and engineering applications and finite domains for scheduling, are presented.

• The family of (concurrent) constraint logic programming languages

  Preliminaries of Syntax and Semantics

  Constraint logic programming (incl. Prolog)

  Concurrent committed-choice constraint logic programming

  Constraint handling rules (CHR)

• Constraint systems and their solvers Rational Trees

  Feature Terms, Description Logic (not in book)

  Boolean Constraints

  Finite Domains

  Linear polynomial equations

  Non-Linear polynomial equations

• Applications

  Commercial applications, market and companies

  Case study Munich rent advisor on the internet

  Case study Planning wireless telecommunication

  Case study Timetabling and Roomplanning