Type-based Nondeterminism Checking in Functional Logic Programs
by Michael Hanus and Frank SteinerAbstract
Functional logic languages combine nondeterministic search facilities of logic languages with features of functional languages, e.g., monadic I/O to provide a declarative method to deal with I/O actions. Unfortunately, monadic I/O cannot be used in programs which split the computation due to nondeterministic reductions. This problem can be avoided if nondeterministic computations are encapsulated by search operators which are available, for instance, in the multi-paradigm language Curry. To support the programmer in identifying nondeterministic parts of a program, we develop a method based on a type and effect system that will find every possible source of nondeterminism. Additionally, such information can be exploited in compilers to optimize deterministically reducible parts of a program.Download: Postscript BibTeX entry Slides
