We propose a major revision of the format XCSP 2.1, called XCSP3, to build integrated representations of combinatorial constrained problems. This new format is able to deal with mono/multi optimization, many types of variables, cost functions, reification, views, annotations, variable quantification, distributed, probabilistic and qualitative reasoning. The new format is made compact, highly readable, and rather easy to parse. Interestingly, it captures the structure of the problem models, through the possibilities of declaring arrays of variables, and identifying syntactic and semantic groups of constraints. The number of constraints is kept under control by introducing a limited set of basic constraint forms, and producing almost automatically some of their variations through lifting, restriction, sliding, logical combination and relaxation mechanisms. As a result, XCSP3 encompasses practically all constraints that can be found in major constraint solvers developed by the CP community. A website, which is developed conjointly with the format, contains many models and series of instances. The user can make sophisticated queries for selecting instances from very precise criteria. The objective of XCSP3 is to ease the effort required to test and compare different algorithms by providing a common test-bed of combinatorial constrained instances.

翻译：我们提出了对XCSP 2.1格式的重大修订，称为XCSP3，用于构建组合约束问题的集成表示。这种新格式能够处理单目标/多目标优化、多种变量类型、代价函数、具体化、视图、注释、变量量化、分布式推理、概率推理和定性推理。新格式设计紧凑、可读性高且易于解析。值得注意的是，它通过声明变量数组及识别约束的句法和语义组的能力，捕捉了问题模型的结构。通过引入有限的基本约束形式，并借助提升、限制、滑动、逻辑组合和松弛机制近乎自动地生成其变体，约束数量得以有效控制。因此，XCSP3实际上涵盖了约束规划社区开发的主要约束求解器中存在的所有约束。与该格式同步开发的网站包含大量模型和实例系列，用户可根据精确标准进行复杂查询以选择实例。XCSP3的目标是通过提供组合约束实例的通用测试平台，降低测试和比较不同算法所需的工作量。