Well-Formedness Clauses

For every pair of variables x and y, we introduce a finite domain variable R_{xy} to denote the relationship x\mathbin{R_{xy}}y that obtains between them. R_{xy}\in\{\EQ,\LT,\GT,\DJ\} and we freely identify \{\EQ,\LT,\GT,\DJ\} with \{1,2,3,4\}. In a solved form, every R_{xy} must be determined.

In order to guarantee that a solved form is tree-shaped, for each pair of variables x and y, we consider the 4 mutually exclusive possibilities. For each possible relation r\in\{\EQ,\LT,\GT,\DJ\} we state that either R_{xy}=r and the corresponding characteristic constraints \ENC{x\mathbin{r}y} hold, or R_{xy}\neq r and the constraints \ENC{x\mathbin{{\neg}r}y} characteristic of the negation hold.

Thus for each pair of variables x and y, we stipulate that the following 4 Well-Formedness Clauses hold:

\begin{array}{@{}c@{{}\wedge{}}l@{\ \textbf{or}\ }l@{{}\wedge{}}c@{}}
\ENC{x\EQ y}& R_{xy}=\EQ & R_{xy}\neq\EQ&\ENC{x\NEQ y}\\
\ENC{x\LT y}& R_{xy}=\LT & R_{xy}\neq\LT&\ENC{x\NLT y}\\
\ENC{x\GT y}& R_{xy}=\GT & R_{xy}\neq\GT&\ENC{x\NGT y}\\
\ENC{x\DJ y}& R_{xy}=\DJ & R_{xy}\neq\DJ&\ENC{x\NDJ y}
\end{array}

These clauses are all of the form C_1\textbf{ or }C_2. This denotes a disjunctive propagator and is explained in the next section.


Denys Duchier
Version 1.2.0 (20010221)