Non-CNF QBF Solving with QCIR

While it is empirically confirmed folklore that conjunctive normal form (CNF) is not the ideal input format for QBF solvers, most tool developers and therefore also the users focus on formulas in this restricted structure. One important factor for establishing non-CNF solving is the input format. To overcome drawbacks of available formats, the QCIR format has recently been presented. The QCIR format is a circuit-based input format for quantified Boolean formulas which supports structure sharing. In contrast to previous formats, the representation is very compact, yet still easy to parse and to read for the human user. In this paper, we analyze the QCIR format in detail and provide tools and benchmarks which, we hope, will make its usage attractive and motivate tool developers to support this format as well as users to formulate their encodings in this format.

[1]  Toby Walsh,et al.  Handbook of Satisfiability: Volume 185 Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence and Applications , 2009 .

[2]  Armin Biere,et al.  Automated Testing and Debugging of SAT and QBF Solvers , 2010, SAT.

[3]  Lukasz Kaiser,et al.  Experiments with Reduction Finding , 2013, SAT.

[4]  Fahiem Bacchus,et al.  Recovering and Utilizing Partial Duality in QBF , 2013, SAT.

[5]  Florian Lonsing,et al.  The QBF Gallery: Behind the scenes , 2016, Artif. Intell..

[6]  Mikolás Janota,et al.  Efficient Extraction of QBF (Counter)models from Long-Distance Resolution Proofs , 2015, AAAI.

[7]  Lintao Zhang,et al.  Solving QBF by Combining Conjunctive and Disjunctive Normal Forms , 2006, AAAI.

[8]  Daniel Kroening,et al.  A First Step Towards a Unified Proof Checker for QBF , 2007, SAT.

[9]  Marco Benedetti,et al.  QBF-Based Formal Verification: Experience and Perspectives , 2008, J. Satisf. Boolean Model. Comput..

[10]  Armin Biere,et al.  Resolution-Based Certificate Extraction for QBF - (Tool Presentation) , 2012, SAT.

[11]  David A. Plaisted,et al.  A Structure-Preserving Clause Form Translation , 1986, J. Symb. Comput..

[12]  Jie-Hong Roland Jiang,et al.  Unified QBF certification and its applications , 2012, Formal Methods Syst. Des..

[13]  G. S. Tseitin.  On the Complexity of Derivation in Propositional Calculus , 1983 .

[14]  Luca Pulina,et al.  Report of the Third QBF Solvers Evaluation , 2006, J. Satisf. Boolean Model. Comput..

[15]  Edmund M. Clarke,et al.  A Non-prenex, Non-clausal QBF Solver with Game-State Learning , 2010, SAT.

[16]  Cesare Tinelli,et al.  Handbook of Satisfiability , 2021, Handbook of Satisfiability.

[17]  Martina Seidl,et al.  A Framework for the Specification of Random SAT and QSAT Formulas , 2012, TAP@TOOLS.

[18]  Bart Selman,et al.  The Achilles' Heel of QBF , 2005, AAAI.

[19]  Lukasz Kaiser,et al.  Benchmarks from Reduction Finding , 2013 .

[20]  Fahiem Bacchus,et al.  Exploiting QBF Duality on a Circuit Representation , 2010, AAAI.

[21]  Hans Kleine Büning,et al.  Theory of Quantified Boolean Formulas , 2021, Handbook of Satisfiability.

[22]  Fahiem Bacchus,et al.  A Uniform Approach for Generating Proofs and Strategies for Both True and False QBF Formulas , 2011, IJCAI.