A Blueprint for an Abstract Machine for Abstract Interpretation of (Constraint) Logic Programs

Abstract interpretation is a widely used analysis method. Generic frameworks such as GAIA and PLAI have been implemented for the top-down analysis of logic programs. These frameworks are interpreter-based, the programs to be analysed are interpreted. The current paper presents a detailed design of an abstract machine for abstract interpretation (AMAI). This machine can be seen as a variant of the WAM for “executing logic programs over a nonstandard domain of data descriptions” A first prototype has been built in Prolog and has been compared with PLAI for a non-trivial domain