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International Joint Conference on Automated Reasoning

IJCAR 2016: Automated Reasoning pp 9–14Cite as

Programming by Examples: Applications, Algorithms, and Ambiguity Resolution

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Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 9706))

Abstract

99 % of computer end users do not know programming, and struggle with repetitive tasks. Programming by Examples (PBE) can revolutionize this landscape by enabling users to synthesize intended programs from example based specifications. A key technical challenge in PBE is to search for programs that are consistent with the examples provided by the user. Our efficient search methodology is based on two key ideas: (i) Restriction of the search space to an appropriate domain-specific language that offers balanced expressivity and readability (ii) A divide-and-conquer based deductive search paradigm that inductively reduces the problem of synthesizing a program of a certain kind that satisfies a given specification into sub-problems that refer to sub-programs or sub-specifications. Another challenge in PBE is to resolve the ambiguity in the example based specification. We will discuss two complementary approaches: (a) machine learning based ranking techniques that can pick an intended program from among those that satisfy the specification, and (b) active-learning based user interaction models. The above concepts will be illustrated using FlashFill, FlashExtract, and FlashRelate—PBE technologies for data manipulation domains. These technologies, which have been released inside various Microsoft products, are useful for data scientists who spend 80 % of their time wrangling with data. The Microsoft PROSE SDK allows easy construction of such technologies.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, WA, USA

    Sumit Gulwani

Authors
  1. Sumit Gulwani
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Correspondence to Sumit Gulwani .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Aix-Marseille University, Marseille, France

    Nicola Olivetti

  2. SRI International, Menlo Park, California, USA

    Ashish Tiwari

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© 2016 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

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Gulwani, S. (2016). Programming by Examples: Applications, Algorithms, and Ambiguity Resolution. In: Olivetti, N., Tiwari, A. (eds) Automated Reasoning. IJCAR 2016. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 9706. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-40229-1_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-40229-1_2

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-40228-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-40229-1

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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