Term Rewriting and All That

Unified and self-contained introduction to term-rewriting; suited for students or professionals.

This textbook offers a unified and self-contained introduction to the field of term rewriting. It covers 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. The main algorithms are presented both informally and as programs in the functional language Standard ML (an appendix contains a quick and easy introduction to ML). Certain crucial algorithms like unification and congruence closure are covered in more depth and Pascal programs are developed. The book contains many examples and over 170 exercises. This text is also an ideal reference book for professional researchers: results that have been spread over many conference and journal articles are collected together in a unified notation, proofs of almost all theorems are provided, and each chapter closes with a guide to the literature.

Preface; 1. Motivating examples; 2. Abstract reduction systems; 3. Universal algebra; 4. Equational problems; 5. Termination; 6. Confluence; 7. Completion; 8. Gröbner bases and Buchberger's algorithm; 9. Combination problems; 10. Equational unification; 11. Extensions; Appendix 1. Ordered sets; Appendix 2. A bluffer's guide to ML; Bibliography; Index.

This is a unified and self-contained introduction to term rewriting that can be used for advanced undergraduate courses or as a professional reference. The main algorithms are presented both informally and as ML programs. Many examples and over 170 exercises are provided (solutions available from dtranah@cup.cam.ac.uk).