Abstract
While past research in answer-set programming (ASP) mainly focused on theory, ASP solver technology,
and applications, the present work situates itself in the context of a quite recent research trend:
development support for ASP. In particular, we propose to augment answer-set programs with additional
meta-information formulated in a dedicated annotation language, called LANA. This language
allows the grouping of rules into coherent blocks and to specify language signatures, types, pre- and
postconditions, as well as unit tests for such blocks. While these annotations are invisible to an ASP
solver, as they take the form of program comments, they can be interpreted by tools for documentation,
testing, and verification purposes, as well as to eliminate sources of common programming errors by
realising syntax checking or code completion features. To demonstrate its versatility, we introduce
two such tools, viz. (i) ASPDOC, for generating an HTML documentation for a program based on the
annotated information, and (ii) ASPUNIT, for running and monitoring unit tests on program blocks.
LANA is also exploited in the SeaLion system, an integrated development environment for ASP
based on Eclipse.
and applications, the present work situates itself in the context of a quite recent research trend:
development support for ASP. In particular, we propose to augment answer-set programs with additional
meta-information formulated in a dedicated annotation language, called LANA. This language
allows the grouping of rules into coherent blocks and to specify language signatures, types, pre- and
postconditions, as well as unit tests for such blocks. While these annotations are invisible to an ASP
solver, as they take the form of program comments, they can be interpreted by tools for documentation,
testing, and verification purposes, as well as to eliminate sources of common programming errors by
realising syntax checking or code completion features. To demonstrate its versatility, we introduce
two such tools, viz. (i) ASPDOC, for generating an HTML documentation for a program based on the
annotated information, and (ii) ASPUNIT, for running and monitoring unit tests on program blocks.
LANA is also exploited in the SeaLion system, an integrated development environment for ASP
based on Eclipse.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 616-637 |
| Number of pages | 18 |
| Journal | Theory and Practice of Logic Programming |
| Volume | 12 |
| Issue number | 4-5 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Jul 2012 |