Towards a Generic Framework to Generate Explanatory Traces of Constraint Solving and Rule-Based Reasoning

TL;DR

This paper presents a method using the Simple Fluent Calculus to specify and extend generic tracers for constraint solving and rule-based reasoning, demonstrated through an extensible Java platform called CHROME-REF.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach to define and extend generic tracers using SFC, integrated into the CHROME platform for explanatory reasoning.

Findings

Successfully implemented a generic tracer specification in SFC

Extended CHROME with an extensible tracer framework

Enabled independent use of traces across different components

Abstract

In this report, we show how to use the Simple Fluent Calculus (SFC) to specify generic tracers, i.e. tracers which produce a generic trace. A generic trace is a trace which can be produced by different implementations of a software component and used independently from the traced component. This approach is used to define a method for extending a java based CHRor platform called CHROME (Constraint Handling Rule Online Model-driven Engine) with an extensible generic tracer. The method includes a tracer specification in SFC, a methodology to extend it, and the way to integrate it with CHROME, resulting in the platform CHROME-REF (for Reasoning Explanation Facilities), which is a constraint solving and rule based reasoning engine with explanatory traces.