Rule Module Inheritance with Modification Restrictions

Adapting rule sets to different settings, yet avoiding uncontrolled proliferation of variations, is a key challenge of rule management. One fundamental concept to foster reuse and simplify adaptation is inheritance. Building on rule modules, i.e., rule sets with input and output schema, we formally define inheritance of rule modules by incremental modification in single inheritance hierarchies. To avoid uncontrolled proliferation of modifications, we introduce formal modification restrictions which flexibly regulate the degree to which a child module may be modified in comparison to its parent. As concrete rule language, we employ Datalog ± which can be regarded a common logical core of many rule languages. We evaluate the approach by a proof-of-concept prototype.