Analysing the implicit complexity of programs

We study termination proofs in order to (i) determine computational complexity of programs and (ii) generate efficient programs from the complexity analysis. For this, we construct a termination ordering, called light multiset path ordering (LMPO), which is a restriction of the multiset path ordering. We establish that the class of first order functional programs on lists which is terminating by LMPO characterises exactly the functions computable in polynomial time. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]