Observable Behaviors and Equivalences of Logic Programs

AbstractWe first introduce a general semantic scheme for logic programs which provides a uniform framework for defining different compositional semantics parametrically with respect to a given notion of observability. The equivalence of the operational (top-down) and fixpoint (bottom-up) construction of the semantics is ensured by the scheme (provided a congruence property is verified). We then define several observational equivalences on logic programs and investigate how they are related. The equivalences are based on various observables (successful derivations, computed answers, partial computed answers and call patterns) and on a notion of program composition. For each observational equivalence we study the relation with a suitable formal semantics by investigating correctness and full abstraction properties. All the semantics we consider are obtained as instances of the general scheme