An abstract interpretation scheme for groundness, freeness, and sharing analysis of logic programs

Abstract

Static global analyses based on abstract interpretation have been used to derive properties of programs. The analyses differ in the expressiveness of the abstract domains and the precision and efficiency of the domain operations. We extend an abstract domain defined by Jacobs and Langen and present new abstract domain operations to derive freeness, groundness, and sharing of variables in logic programs. Analysis of non-trivial programs shows that our method is more precise and more efficient than previous proposals.