Constraint Programming - an Introduction, with
    some Applications to String Processing

                                  Justin Pearson

Uppsala University, Dept of Information Technology, SE – 751 05 Uppsala, Sweden
                           Justin.Pearson@it.uu.se



     Abstract. Constraint programming is a declarative framework for mod-
     elling and solving combinatorial problems. In this talk I will give a short
     introduction to constraint programming with emphasis on global con-
     straints and propagation. Global constraints are a fundamental compo-
     nent of a modern constraint solver that not only allow common combi-
     natorial substructures to be modelled, but they also significantly prune
     the space. Further I will talk about some community wide efforts to
     standardise solver interfaces (MiniZinc), and some recent work done in
     Uppsala on constraint programming with bounded strings.