Work

Picat Through the Lens of Advent of Code

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: Picat is a logic-based, multi-paradigm programming language that integrates features from logic, functional, constraint, and imperative programming paradigms. This paper presents solutions to several problems from the 2024 Advent of Code (AoC). While AoC problems are not designed for any specific programming language, certain problem types, such as reverse engineering and path-finding, are particularly well-suited to Picat due to its built-in constraint solving, pattern matching, backtracking, and dynamic programming with tabling. This paper demonstrates that Picat's features, especially its SAT-based constraint solving and tabling, enable concise, declarative, and highly efficient implementations of problems that would require significantly more effort in imperative languages.

Source: Electronic Proceedings in Theoretical Computer Science

DOI: 10.4204/eptcs.439.36

Authors: Neng-Fa Zhou, Cristian Grozea, Håkan Kjellerstrand, Oisín Mac Fhearaí

Institutions: The Graduate Center, CUNY, Brooklyn College, Fraunhofer Institute for Open Communication Systems

Language: English

Topic: Logic, programming, and type systems

Subfield: Artificial Intelligence

Field: Computer Science

Domain: Physical Sciences

Open Access status: diamond

Funder: Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung

Awards: G2295054390, Verbundprojekt: 6G Research and Innovation Cluster (6G-RIC) Offene und sichere 6G-Technologien: Weltmarktchance für Deutschland - 6G-RIC, Teilvorhaben: Koordination, Gesamtarchitektur und Infrastruktur