A Constraint Propagation for First-Order Logic and Inductive Definitions

In Constraint Programming, constraint propagation is a basic component of constraint satisfaction solvers. Here we study constraint propagation as a basic form of inference in the context of first-order logic (FO) and extensions with inductive definitions (FO(ID)) and aggregates (FO(AGG)). In a first, semantic approach, a theory of propagators and constraint propagation is developed for theories in the context of three-valued interpretations. We present an algorithm with polynomial-time data complexity. We show that constraint propagation in this manner can be represented by a datalog program. In a second, symbolic approach, the semantic algorithm is lifted to a constraint propagation algorithm in symbolic structures, symbolic representations of classes of structures. The third part of the paper is an overview of existing and potential applications of constraint propagation for model generation, grounding, interactive search problems, approximate methods for ∃∀SO problems, and approximate query answering in incomplete databases.