Improving the Search Capabilities of a CFLP(FD) System

Abstract

The CFLP system TOY(FD) is implemented in SICStus Prolog, and supports FD constraints by interfacing the CP(FD) solvers of Gecode and ILOG Solver. In this paper TOY(FD) is extended with new search primitives, in a setting easily adaptable to other Prolog CLP or CFLP systems. The primitives are described from a solver-independent point of view, pointing out some novel concepts not directly available in the Gecode and ILOG Solver libraries, as well as how to specify some search criteria at TOY(FD) level and how easily these strategies can be combined to set different search scenarios. The implementation of the primitives is described, presenting an abstract view of the requirements and how they are targeted to the Gecode and ILOG libraries. Finally, some benchmarks show that the new search strategies improve the solving performance of TOY(FD).