Term Ordering Diagrams

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Hajdu, Márton, Coutelier, Robin, Kovács, Laura, Voronkov, Andrei
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Hajdu, Márton
Coutelier, Robin
Kovács, Laura
Voronkov, Andrei
author_facet Hajdu, Márton
Coutelier, Robin
Kovács, Laura
Voronkov, Andrei
contents The superposition calculus for reasoning in first-order logic with equality relies on simplification orderings on terms. Modern saturation provers use the Knuth-Bendix order (KBO) and the lexicographic path order (LPO) for discovering redundant clauses and inferences. Implementing term orderings is however challenging. While KBO comparisons can be performed in linear time and LPO checks in quadratic time, using the best known algorithms for these orders is not enough. Indeed, our experiments show that for some examples term ordering checks may use about 98% of the overall proving time. The reason for this is that some equalities that cannot be ordered can become ordered after applying a substitution (post-ordered), and we have to check for post-ordering repeatedly for the same equalities. In this paper, we show how to improve post-ordering checks by introducing a new data structure called term ordering diagrams, in short TODs, which creates an index for these checks. We achieve efficiency by lazy modifications of the index and by storing and reusing information from previously performed checks to speed up subsequent checks. Our experiments demonstrate efficiency of TODs.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2505_22181
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Term Ordering Diagrams
Hajdu, Márton
Coutelier, Robin
Kovács, Laura
Voronkov, Andrei
Logic in Computer Science
The superposition calculus for reasoning in first-order logic with equality relies on simplification orderings on terms. Modern saturation provers use the Knuth-Bendix order (KBO) and the lexicographic path order (LPO) for discovering redundant clauses and inferences. Implementing term orderings is however challenging. While KBO comparisons can be performed in linear time and LPO checks in quadratic time, using the best known algorithms for these orders is not enough. Indeed, our experiments show that for some examples term ordering checks may use about 98% of the overall proving time. The reason for this is that some equalities that cannot be ordered can become ordered after applying a substitution (post-ordered), and we have to check for post-ordering repeatedly for the same equalities. In this paper, we show how to improve post-ordering checks by introducing a new data structure called term ordering diagrams, in short TODs, which creates an index for these checks. We achieve efficiency by lazy modifications of the index and by storing and reusing information from previously performed checks to speed up subsequent checks. Our experiments demonstrate efficiency of TODs.
title Term Ordering Diagrams
topic Logic in Computer Science
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.22181