Using petri nets for rule termination analysis

Abstract

In Active Database Systems the problem of infinite rule processing may occur. Analysis methods provide an identification of rule sets which can be guaranteed to terminate or which may lead to an infinite rule processing. We propose Petri nets as the base for a compile-time rule analysis. Petri nets provide a promising formalism to model and analyse the behaviour of rules and the interactions between them very precisely. Not only rule semantics considered by termination analysis techniques presented in the literature can easily be modelled but also other parts of the rule model as, e.g., complex events. Thus we are able to enhance the results of the termination analysis methods known to us. In mis paper we focus on the analysis of the Petri nets.