Nested HEX-Programs

TL;DR

Nested HEX-programs extend HEX-programs in Answer-Set Programming to support subprogram calls and external computations, enabling more modular and meta-reasoning capabilities in declarative programming.

Contribution

Introduction of nested HEX-programs that allow individual access to subprogram answer sets, enhancing HEX-programs with features similar to procedural subprogram calls.

Findings

Supports reasoning over answer sets like belief merging

Enables user-defined aggregate functions

Facilitates preferences of answer sets

Abstract

Answer-Set Programming (ASP) is an established declarative programming paradigm. However, classical ASP lacks subprogram calls as in procedural programming, and access to external computations (like remote procedure calls) in general. The feature is desired for increasing modularity and---assuming proper access in place---(meta-)reasoning over subprogram results. While HEX-programs extend classical ASP with external source access, they do not support calls of (sub-)programs upfront. We present nested HEX-programs, which extend HEX-programs to serve the desired feature, in a user-friendly manner. Notably, the answer sets of called sub-programs can be individually accessed. This is particularly useful for applications that need to reason over answer sets like belief set merging, user-defined aggregate functions, or preferences of answer sets.