Strong Termination of Logic Programs

Abstract

We study a powerful class of logic programs which terminate for a large class of goals. Both classes are characterized in a natural way in terms of mappings from variable-free atoms to natural numbers. Based on this idea we present a technique which improves the termination behaviour and allows a more multidirectional use of Prolog programs. The class of logic programs is shown to be strong enough to compute every total recursive function. The class of goals considerably extends the variable-free ones.