## 5.8 Symbolic Propagators

The following propagators do domain propagation or amplify the store by constraints `X::Spec`, where `Spec` may also contain holes.

`distinct`

  > > `{FD.distinct` `*Dv``}`

  All elements in `Dv` are pairwise distinct. If one element becomes determined, the remaining elements are constrained to be different from it. If two variables become equal, the propagator fails, e. g. `{FD.distinct [A A B]}` will fail even if `A` is not determined.

`distinct`

  > > `{FD.distinctB` `*Dv``}`

  All elements in `Dv` are pairwise distinct. Uses bounds propagation, but does not use value propagation as `FD.distinct`. Also fails, if two variables are equal. Currently uses the quadratic algorithm for propagation by Puget described in [Pug98].

`distinct`

  > > `{FD.distinctD` `*Dv``}`

  All elements in `Dv` are pairwise distinct. Uses full domain propagation. Also fails, if two variables are equal. Is based on Régin's algorithm [Rég94].

`distinctOffset`

  > > `{FD.distinctOffset` `*Dv``` `+Iv``}`

  All sums are pairwise distinct, i. e. for all holds . If one becomes determined, the remaining elements are constrained to be different from .

`distinct2`

  > > `{FD.distinct2` `*Dv1``` `+Iv1``` `*Dv2``` `+Iv2``}`

  Assume that all arguments are tuples of width n. Then the propagator's operational semantics is defined as follows.

  > `or Dv1.` `i``+ IV1.` `i``=<: Dv1.` `j``
  > [] Dv1.` `j``+ IV1.` `j``=<: Dv1.` `i``
  > [] Dv2.` `i``+ IV2.` `i``=<: Dv2.` `j``
  > [] Dv2.` `j``+ IV2.` `j``=<: Dv2.` `i``
  > end`

  This propagator may be used to express that a number of rectangles must not overlap in the two-dimensional space. In this case `Dv1` and `Dv2` may denote the x-coordinates and y-coordinates of the lower left corner of the rectangles, respectively. `Iv1` and `Iv2` may denote the widths and heights of the rectangles, respectively.

`atMost`

  > `{FD.atMost` `*D``` `*Dv``` `+I``}`

`atLeast`

  > `{FD.atLeast` `*D``` `*Dv``` `+I``}`

`exactly`

  > `{FD.exactly` `*D``` `*Dv``` `+I``}`

  At most, at least, exactly `D` elements of `Dv` are equal to `I`. The operational semantics is defined as follows. Let `VFoldL` be either `FoldL` or `Record.foldL` depending on the type of `Dv` and

  > `S = {VFoldL Dv fun{$ In D1} {FD.plus In D1=:I} end 0}`

  The propagator `FD.atMost`, `FD.atLeast` and `FD.exactly` are defined by `D``>=:S`, `D``=<:S` and `D``=:S`, respectively.

`element`

  > > `{FD.element` `*D1``` `+Iv``` `*D2``}`

  The `D1`-th element of `Iv` is `D2`.

  It propagates as follows. For each integer i in the domain of `D1`, the i-th element of `Iv` is in the domain of `D2`; and no other values. For each value j in the domain of `D2`, all positions where j occurs in `Is` are in the domain of `D1`; and no other values. For example,

  > `{FD.int [1 3] X} {FD.element X [5 6 7 8] Y}`

  will constrain `Y` to . `D1` is constrained to be greater than 0.