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International Workshop on Constraint Solving and Constraint Logic Programming

CSCLP 2003: Recent Advances in Constraints pp 171–195Cite as

A Generic Trace Schema for the Portability of CP(FD) Debugging Tools

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Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 3010))

Abstract

Debugging tools are essential to help tune constraint solving programs and each platform has its environment tools. However, at present, these tools are specific and have to be redesigned and re-implemented for each constraint solver whereas much could be factorized. This article sets the foundations to enable debugging tools to be defined almost independently from finite domain solvers, and conversely, tracers to be built independently from these tools. We propose a generic trace schema based on a generic observational semantics which formalizes relevant aspects of constraint programming and solving. We illustrate the genericity of the schema on three representative families of finite domain solvers: CLP (Gnu-Prolog), CSP (Choco) and explanation based CP (PaLM). Debugging tools can use the generic trace and do not have to take into account all the details of the solvers. We experimented several combinations of new debugging tools with the above mentioned solvers. We show that they all find in the generic trace the whole information they require.

This work is partly supported by OADymPPaC, a French RNTL project: http://contraintes.inria.fr/OADymPPaC.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Inria Rocquencourt, BP 105, 78153, Le Chesnay Cedex, France

    Ludovic Langevine & Pierre Deransart

  2. Irisa/Insa, Campus Universitaire de Beaulieu, 35042, Rennes Cedex, France

    Mireille Ducassé

Authors
  1. Ludovic Langevine
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  2. Pierre Deransart
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  3. Mireille Ducassé
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Krzysztof R. Apt

  2. Projet Contraintes, INRIA Rocquencourt, BP105, 78153, Domaine de Voluceau, Le Chesnay Cedex, France

    François Fages

  3. Dipartimento di Matematica Pura ed Applicata, Università di Padova, Via Trieste 63, 35121, Padova, Italy

    Francesca Rossi

  4. Department of Computer Science and Information Theory, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Magyar tudósok körútja 2, H-1117, Hungary, Budapest

    Péter Szeredi

  5. Computer and Automation Research Institute, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Kende u. 13-17, 1111, Budapest, Hungary

    Josef Váncza

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© 2004 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Langevine, L., Deransart, P., Ducassé, M. (2004). A Generic Trace Schema for the Portability of CP(FD) Debugging Tools. In: Apt, K.R., Fages, F., Rossi, F., Szeredi, P., Váncza, J. (eds) Recent Advances in Constraints. CSCLP 2003. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 3010. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-24662-6_10

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-24662-6_10

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-21834-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-24662-6

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