Active Rule Termination Analysis: An Implementation and Evaluation of the Refined Triggering Graph Method

This paper describes the implementation of the Refined Triggering Graph (RTG) method for active rule termination analysis and provides an evaluation of the approach based on the application of the method to a sample active application. The RTG method has been defined in the context of an active-deductive, object-oriented database language known as CDOL (Comprehensive, Declarative, Object Language). The RTG method studies the contents of rule pairs and rule cycles in a triggering graph and tests for: (1) the successful unification of one rule's action with another rule's triggering event, and (2) the satisfiability of active rule conditions, asking whether it is possible for the condition of a triggered rule to evaluate to true in the context of the triggering rule's condition. If the analysis can provably demonstrate that one rule cannot trigger another rule, the directed vector connecting the two rules in a basic triggering graph can be removed, thus refining the triggering graph. An important aspect in the implementation of the method is the development of a satisfiability algorithm for CDOL conditions. This paper presents the tool that was developed based on the RTG method, describing how techniques from constraint logic programming are integrated with other techniques for testing the satisfiability of rule triggering conditions. The effectiveness of the approach within the context of a sample application is also addressed.