Term rewriting techniques are applicable to various fields of computer science, including software engineering, programming languages, computer algebra, program verification, automated theorem proving and Boolean algebra. These powerful techniques can be successfully applied in all areas that demand efficient methods for reasoning with equations. One of the major problems encountered is the characterization of classes of rewrite systems that have a desirable property, like confluence or termination. In a system that is both terminating and confluent, every computation leads to a result that is unique, regardless of the order in which the rewrite rules are applied. This volume provides a comprehensive and unified presentation of termination and confluence, as well as related properties. Topics and features: *unified presentation and notation for important advanced topics *comprehensive coverage of conditional term-rewriting systems *state-of-the-art survey of modularity in term rewriting *presentation of unified framework for term and graph rewriting *up-to-date discussion of transformational methods for proving termination of logic programs, including the TALP system This unique book offers a comprehensive and unified view of the subject that is suitable for all computer scientists, program designers, and software engineers who study and use term rewriting techniques. Practitioners, researchers and professionals will find the book an essential and authoritative resource and guide for the latest developments and results in the field.

Unlike current survey articles and textbooks, here the so-called confluence and termination hierarchies play a key role. Throughout, the relationships between the properties in the hierarchies are reviewed, and it is shown that for every implication X => Y in the hierarchies, the property X is undecidable for all term rewriting systems satisfying Y. Topics covered include: the newest techniques for proving termination of rewrite systems; a comprehensive chapter on conditional term rewriting systems; a state-of-the-art survey of modularity in term rewriting, and a uniform framework for term and graph rewriting, as well as the first result on conditional graph rewriting.