Enumeration Strategies in Constraint Programming for Solving Puzzles

Constraint programming is one of the major contributions of computer science for solving problems of high complexity. This paradigm is used to represent a wide variety of problems that can be modeled like constraint satisfaction problems and solving them via constraint propagation and enumeration. In this work, we study the resolution of puzzles with this approach, we evaluate the performance of different variable and value selection heuristics in the enumeration phase. It is demonstrated the relevance of the enumeration strategy in a constraint programming process.