POOC- a platform for object-oriented constraint programming

In this paper, we describe an implementation-independent object-oriented interface for commercial and academic Constraint Solvers. This serves as a basis for evaluating different Constraint Solvers and for developing solver-independent applications. We show, how applications can use the interface, which solvers are already integrated into the framework and how additional solvers can be added. Furtermore, we provide to the community the described system as real Java packages via Internet, that even includes a basic but powerful Constraint Solver.