Term Rewriting and All That [Paperback]

Unified and self-contained introduction to term-rewriting; suited for students or professionals.This is a unified and self-contained introduction to the field of term rewriting, a high-level method for describing the behaviour of computer programs and for automating mathematical computations and proofs. The main algorithms are presented both informally and as programs in the ML language. Many examples and over 170 exercises are provided; each chapter closes with a guide to the literature. This text can be used for advanced undergraduate courses or as a professional reference: it is the first time many of the results have been presented in book form.This is a unified and self-contained introduction to the field of term rewriting, a high-level method for describing the behaviour of computer programs and for automating mathematical computations and proofs. The main algorithms are presented both informally and as programs in the ML language. Many examples and over 170 exercises are provided; each chapter closes with a guide to the literature. This text can be used for advanced undergraduate courses or as a professional reference: it is the first time many of the results have been presented in book form.This textbook offers a unified, self-contained introduction to the field of term rewriting. Baader and Nipkow cover all the basic material--abstract reduction systems, termination, confluence, completion, and combination problems--but also some important and closely connected subjects: universal algebra, unification theory, Gröbner bases, and Buchberger's algorithm. They present the main algorithms both informally and as programs in the functional language Standard ML (An appendix contains a quick and easy introduction to ML). Key chapters cover crucial algorithms such as unification and congruence closure in more depth and develop efficient Pascal programs. The book contains many examples and over 170 exercises. This is also an ideal reference book for profeslC!