Efficient Dataflow Analysis of Logic Programs

A framework for efficient dataflow analyses of logic programs is investigated. A number of problems arise in this context: aliasing effects can make analysis computationally expensive for sequential logic programming languages; synchronization issues can complicate the analysis of parallel logic programming languages; and finiteness restrictions to guarantee termination can limit the expressive power of such analyses. Our main result is to give a simple characterization of a family of flow analyses where these issues can be ignored without compromising soundness. This results in algorithms that are simple to verify and implement, and efficient in execution. Based on this approach, we describe an efficient algorithm for flow analysis of sequential logic programs, extend this approach to handle parallel executions, and finally describe how infinite chains in the analysis domain can be accommodated without compromising termination.