A structure-based variable ordering heuristic for SAT

  • Authors:

  • Jinbo Huang;Adnan Darwiche

  • Affiliations:

  • Computer Science Department, University of California, Los Angeles, CA;Computer Science Department, University of California, Los Angeles, CA

  • Venue:
  • IJCAI'03 Proceedings of the 18th international joint conference on Artificial intelligence
  • Year:
  • 2003

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Abstract

We propose a variable ordering heuristic for SAT, which is based on a structural analysis of the SAT problem. We show that when the heuristic is used by a Davis-Putnam SAT solver that employs conflict-directed backtracking, it produces a divide-and-conquer behavior in which the SAT problem is recursively decomposed into smaller problems that are solved independently. We discuss the implications of this divide-and-conquer behavior on our ability to provide structure-based guarantees on the complexity of Davis-Putnam SAT solvers. We also report on the integration of this heuristic with ZChaff- a state-of-the-art SAT solver--showing experimentally that it significantly improves performance on a range of benchmark problems that exhibit structure.