Patent ID: 7415444

Claim:
A method of determining compliance of one or more solutions with a probabilistic request submitted for solving a constraint satisfaction problem (CSP), wherein the CSP is defined by one or more variables and constraints such that the constraints define limitations for values that can be assigned to each variable in a given domain to solve the CSP, the method comprising: associating a first probabilistic request with a first constraint, wherein the first probabilistic request indicates that the first constraint is to be satisfied in a predefined percentage of the solutions; processing a first solution to determine whether the first constraint is satisfied by the first solution; incrementing a success counter for the first probabilistic request, in response to determining that the first constraint is satisfied by the first solution; incrementing a failure counter for the first probabilistic request, in response to determining that the first constraint is not satisfied by the first solution; incrementing the failure counter for a second probabilistic request associated with the first constraint, in response to determining that the first constraint is irrelevant to the first solution; reporting conformance rate for the first probabilistic request based on a value of the success counter; reporting conformance rate for the first probabilistic request based on a value of the failure counter; and aggregating success/failure results for the first probabilistic request over multiple solutions to determine whether the first soft constraint is satisfied in said predefined percentage of the solutions, wherein said value of the success counter is recorded in a data structure, wherein said value of the failure counter is recorded in the data structure, wherein the value of the success counter is used to determine a success rate of the first probabilistic request.