Systematic Analysis of Algorithms

SYSTEMATIC ANALYSIS OF ALGORITHMS The limits and methods involved in the systematic analysis of algorithms are explored. A review of the existing work in this field is presented. A specific method of systematic analysis is developed. The method consists of (1) the translation of algorithm loop structures into recursive subroutines and recursive subroutine references, and (2) the semantic manipulation of expressions representing the joint probability distribution function of the program variables. A new delta function is introduced to describe the effects of conditional statements on the joint probability density function of the program variables. The method is applied to several simple algorithms, sorting and searching algorithms, and a tree insertion/deletion algorithm.