METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR TRANSPARENT BACKTRACKING

摘要

A technique is used in embodiments of the invention such that backtracking programs can be written in a general purpose computer language (e.g., C++ or Java) without requiring the control structure of the program to reflect the structure of the decision tree. Since the control structure of the search program need not have the same form as the decision tree, part of the control state for the desired decision point may no longer exist on the execution stack (504), so the catch point (507) may not be directly associated with the desired point but merely precede it. The remaining part of the control state is restored by re-executing the program in a special re-execution mode until the desired state is achieved and another alternative may be chosen.