The relation between logic programming and logic specification

Abstract
Formal logic is widely accepted as a program specification language in computing science. It is ideally suited to the representation of knowledge and the description of problems without regard to the choice of programming language. Its use as a specification language is compatible not only with conventional programming languages but also with programming languages based entirely on logic itself. In this paper I shall investigate the relation that holds when both programs and program specifications are expressed in formal logic. In many cases, when a specification completely defines the relations to be computed, there is no syntactic distinction between specification and program. Moreover the same mechanism that is used to execute logic programs, namely automated deduction, can also be used to execute logic specifications. Thus all relations defined by complete specifications are executable. The only difference between a complete specification and a program is one of efficiency. A program is more efficient than a specification.

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