Visual Prolog Language Tutorial

Visual Prolog Language Tutorial

Using This Manual

PART 1 Using the Environment

CHAPTER 1

What Needs to be Installed for This Book ?

Starting the Visual Prolog Environment

Opening an Editor Window

Running and Testing a Program

Loading Examples From Disk

Handling Errors

PART 2 Tutorial Chapters 2 -- 11 : Learning Prolog

CHAPTER 2

PROgramming in LOGic

1. Sentences: Facts and Rules

3. Variables: General Sentences

4. Overview

From Natural Language to Prolog Programs

1. Clauses (Facts and Rules)

2. Predicates (Relations)

3. Variables (General Clauses)

4. Goals (Queries)

5. Comments

What Is a Match?

CHAPTER 3

Visual Prolog's Basic Program Sections

1. The Clauses Section

2. The Predicates Section

3. The Domains Section

4. The Goal Section

A Closer Look at Declarations and Rules

Other Program Sections

1. The Facts Section

2. The Constants Section

3. The Global Sections

4. The Compiler Directives

CHAPTER 4

Matching Things Up: Unification

CHAPTER 5

Simple Data Objects

1. Variables as Data Objects

2. Constants as Data Objects

Compound Data Objects and Functors

1. Unification of Compound Objects

2. Treating Several Items as One

3. Declaring Domains of Compound Objects

4. Compound Mixed-Domain Declarations

CHAPTER 6

Repetitive Processes

1. Backtracking Revisited

2. Implementing Backtracking with Loops

3. Recursive Procedures

4. Tail Recursion Optimisation

5. Using Arguments as Loop Variables

Recursive Data Structures

1. Trees as a Data Type

2. Binary Search Trees

CHAPTER 7

What Is a List?

1. Declaring Lists

List Processing

Using Lists

1. Writing Lists

2. Counting List Elements

3. Tail Recursion Revisited

4. List Membership

5. Appending One List to Another: Declarative and Procedural Programming

Finding All the Solutions at Once

Compound Lists

CHAPTER 8

Declaring the facts-sections

1. Using the facts sections

2. Accessing the facts sections

3. Updating the facts section

4. Facts determiner-keywords

5. Saving a database of facts at runtime

CHAPTER 9

Arithmetic Expressions

1. Operations

2. Order of Evaluation

Functions and Predicates

1. Generating Random Numbers

2. Integer and Real Arithmetic

Comparisons

1. Equality and the equal (=) Predicate

2. Comparing Characters, Strings, and Symbols

CHAPTER 10

Encapsulation

Objects and classes

Inheritance

Visual Prolog Classes

Class declarations

Class implementation

Class instances

Destroying Objects

Class Domains

Sub-classing and inheritance

Virtual Predicates

Static facts and predicates

Class Scopes

Constructors and Destructors

Reference to the Object Itself (This)

Abstract Classes

Protected facts and predicates

Derived class access control

Formal definition for classes

CHAPTER 11

The Flow Analysis

1. Specifying Flowpatterns for Predicates

2. Controlling the Flow Analysis

3. Reference Variables

4. Declaring Domains as Reference

5. Reference Domains and the Trail Array

6. Using Reference Domains

7. Flow Patterns Revisited

8. Using Binary Trees with Reference Domains

9. Sorting with Reference Domains

Functions and Return Values

Determinism Monitoring in Visual Prolog

1. Visual Prologs determinism checking system

Predicates as Arguments

1. Predicate Domains

2. Examples

The Binary Domain

1. Implementation of binary terms

2. Text syntax of Binary Terms

3. Creating Binary Terms

4. Accessing Binary Terms

5. Unifying Binary Terms

7. Converting Terms to Binary Terms

Errors and Exception Handling

1. Exception Handling and Error Trapping

2. Error reporting

3. Handling Errors from the Term Reader

Break Control (Textmode Only)

1. Manual Break and Signal Checking in UNIX

2. Critical Error Handling under DOS Textmode

Dynamic Cutting

Free Type Conversions

Programming Style

1. Rules for Efficient Programming

2. Using the fail Predicate

3. Determinism vs. Non-determinism: Setting the Cut

PART 3 Tutorial Chapters 12 -- 17 : Using Visual Prolog.

CHAPTER 12

Writing and Reading

3. Binary Block Transfer

Visual Prolog's File System

1. Opening and Closing Files

2. Redirecting Standard I/O

3. Working with Files

4. File Attributes

File and Path Names

Directory Searching

Manipulating File Attributes

Handling terms in text files

1. Manipulating Facts Like Terms

CHAPTER 13

String Processing

1. Basic String-Handling Predicates

Type Conversion

CHAPTER 14

External Databases in Visual Prolog

1. An Overview: What's in an External Database?

3. External Database Domains

4. Manipulating Whole External Databases

5. Manipulating Chains

6. Manipulating Terms

7. A Complete Program Example

1. Pages, Order, and Keylength

2. Duplicate Keys

3. Multiple Scans

4. The B+ Tree Standard Predicates

5. Example: Accessing a Database via B+ Trees

External Database Programming

1. Scanning through a Database

2. Displaying the Contents of a Database

3. Implementing a Database That Won't Break Down

4. Updating the Database

5. Using Internal B+ Tree Pointers

6. Changing the Structure of a Database

7. Filesharing and the External Database

8. Filesharing Domains

9. Opening the Database in Sharemode

10. Programming with Filesharing

11. Implementing highlevel locking

12. A Complete Filesharing Example

13. Implementation Aspects of Visual Prolog Filesharing

Miscellaneous

CHAPTER 15

Access to the operating system

1. Timing Services

Bit-Level Operations

Access to the Hardware: Low-Level Support

CHAPTER 16

Building a Small Expert System

Prototyping: A Simple Routing Problem

Adventures in a Dangerous Cave

Hardware Simulation

Towers of Hanoi

Dividing Words into Syllables

The N Queens Problem

CHAPTER 17

Program Sections

1. The Domains Section

2. The Predicates Section

3. The Facts/Database Section

4. The Clauses Section

5. The Constants Section

6. Conditional Compilation

Including Files in Your Program

Compiler Directives

Visual Prolog Memory Management

1. Releasing Spare Memory Resources

Modular Programming

1. Global Declarations

CHAPTER 18

Using DLL’s

Calling Other Languages from Visual Prolog

1. Declaring External Predicates

2. Calling Conventions and Parameter Passing

Domain Implementation

Simple Domains

1. Complex Domains

Memory Considerations

1. Memory Alignment

2. Memory Allocation

1. List Handling

2. Calling Prolog from Foreign Languages

3. Calling an Assembler Routine from Visual Prolog

Index