Decidability of Systems of Set Constraints with Negative Constraints

Alexander Aiken, Dexter Kozen, Ed Wimmers
1994 BRICS Report Series  
Set constraints are relations between sets of terms. They have been used extensively in various applications in program analysis and type inference. Recently, several algorithms for solving general systems of positive set constraints have appeared. In this paper we consider systems of mixed positive and negative constraints, which are considerably more expressive than positive constraints alone. We show that it is decidable whether a given such system has a solution. The proof involves a
more » ... on to a number-theoretic decision problem that may be of independent interest.
doi:10.7146/brics.v1i32.21611 fatcat:4bmy5unimzarvczdyxeqknhylm