Program synthesis is a solution to the software crisis. If we had a program that develops correct programs from specifications, then program validation and maintenance would disappear from the software life-cycle, and one could focus on the more creative tasks of specification elaboration, validation, and maintenance, because replay of program development would be less costly. This monograph describes a novel approach to Inductive Logic Programming (ILP), which cross-fertilizes logic programming and machine learning. Aiming at the synthesis of recursive logic programs only, and this from incomplete information, we take a software engineering approach that is more appropriate than a pure artificial intelligence approach. This book is suitable as a secondary text for graduate level courses in software engineering and artificial intelligence, and as a reference for practitioners of program synthesis.

Program synthesis is a solution to the software crisis. If we had a program that develops correct programs from specifications, then program validation and maintenance would disappear from the software life-cycle, and one could focus on the more creative tasks of specification elaboration, validation, and maintenance, because replay of program development would be less costly. This monograph describes a novel approach to Inductive Logic Programming (ILP), which cross-fertilizes logic programming and machine learning. Aiming at the synthesis of recursive logic programs only, and this from incomplete information, we take a software engineering approach that is more appropriate than a pure artificial intelligence approach. This book is suitable as a secondary text for graduate level courses in software engineering and artificial intelligence, and as a reference for practitioners of program synthesis.

This book presents the thoroughly refereed post-workshop proceedings of the 8th International Workshop on Logic-Based Program Synthesis and Transformation, LOPSTR'98 held in Manchester, UK in June 1998. The 16 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected during three rounds of inspection from a total of initially 36 extended abstracts submitted. Also included are eight short papers. Among the topics covered are logic specification, mathematical program construction, logic programming, computational logics, inductive program synthesis, constraint logic programs, and mathematical foundations.