Updating knowledge bases while maintaining their consistency

In this paper we propose a new method for updating knowledge bases while maintaining their consistency. Our method can be used for integrity constraints maintenance, view updating, and their combination. It can also be combined with any integrity checking method for view updating and integrity checking. The kind of updates handled by our method are: updates of base facts, view updates, updates of deductive rules and updates of integrity constraints. Our method is based on events and transition rules, which explicitly define the insertions and deletions induced by a knowledge base update. Using these rules, an extension of the SLDNF procedure allows us to obtain all possible minimal ways of updating a knowledge base without violating any integrity constraint.