identification

n 1: the act of designating or identifying something [syn: {designation}]

2: the attribution to yourself of the characteristics of

others; "his identification with his father shaped his

entire life" [syn: {feeling of identity}]

3: evidence of identity; something that identifies a person or

thing

4: the process of recognizing something or someone by

remembering [syn: {recognition}]

5: attribution to yourself (consciously or unconsciously) of

the characteristics of another person (or group of

persons)

unification

The generalisation of {pattern matching} that is

the {logic programming} equivalent of {instantiation} in

{logic}. When two {term}s are to be unified, they are

compared. If they are both constants then the result of

unification is success if they are equal else failure. If one

is a variable then it is bound to the other, which may be any

term (which satisfies an "{occurs check}"), and the

unification succeeds. If both terms are structures then each

pair of sub-terms is unified {recursive}ly and the unification

succeeds if all the sub-terms unify.

The result of unification is either failure or success with a

set of variable bindings, known as a "{unifier}". There may

be many such unifiers for any pair of terms but there will be

at most one "{most general unifier}", other unifiers simply

add extra bindings for sub-terms which are variables in the

original terms.

(1995-12-14)