Martin Kay

Stanford University

Martin Kay Introduction to Prolog 1

 Topics
Books
Starting and stopping Prolog
Consulting and reconsulting files
Assertions and queries
Constants and variables
Nondeterminism
Lists
Facts and rules

Martin Kay Introduction to Prolog 2

 Books
• Bratko, I. (1986) Prolog Programming for Artificial
Intelligence. International Computer Science Series,
Addison Wesley.
• Clocksin, W. F. and C. S. Mellish (1981) Programming
in Prolog. Springer-Verlag, Berlin.
• König, E. and R. Seiffert (1989) Grudkurs Prolog für
Linguisten. UTB für Wissenschaft; Uni-Taschenbücher,
A. Franke Verlag, Tübingen.
• O'Keefe, R. (1990) The Craft of Prolog. MIT Press,
Cambridge, Massachusetts.
• Ross, P. (1989) Advanced Prolog. Addison Weseley.
• Sterling, L. and E. Shapiro (1986) The Art of Prolog.
MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Martin Kay Introduction to Prolog 3
 Sicstus Prolog
Swedish Institute of Computer Science
(SICS)

Setting the path environment variable (on Leland)

elaine27:~> more .cshrc

# @(#) Leland Systems .cshrc version 3.0.4
#
elaine27:~> more .cshrc
# @(#) Leland Systems .cshrc version 3.0.4
#

....

set path=( /afs/ir/class/ling138/bin $path)

....

Martin Kay Introduction to Prolog 4

 Sicstus Prolog
Swedish Institute of Computer Science (SICS)

1 ~ sicstus
SICStus 2.1 #9: Fri Oct 21 16:31:41 PDT 1994
| ?- halt.

2~

The Herald
The Period!

Martin Kay Introduction to Prolog 5

 b a
q p

r c

Martin Kay Introduction to Prolog 6

 b a
q p
d
r c

Martin Kay Introduction to Prolog 7

 b a
q p
d
r c

Martin Kay Introduction to Prolog 8

 b a
q p
d
r c

Martin Kay Introduction to Prolog 9

 Queries
b a
q p
d
r c

Martin Kay Introduction to Prolog 10

 Queries

Now we can make

this a real link!

b a
q p
d
r c

Martin Kay Introduction to Prolog 11

 b a
q p
d
r c
Martin Kay Introduction to Prolog 12
 Consulting files
| ?- consult(maize).
{consulting /tmp_mnt/tilde/kay/pl/parsers/maize.pl...}
{/tmp_mnt/tilde/kay/pl/parsers/maize.pl consulted, 160 msec 1056
bytes}

yes
| ?-

consult(‘maize.pl’).
[maize].
[‘maize.pl’].

Martin Kay Introduction to Prolog 13

 Facts and Rules
past(dive, dived).
past_tense(dive, dove).
pres_part(dive, diving).
sing3(dive, dives).
past_tense(write, wrote). Facts
past_part(write, written).
pres_part(write, writing).
sing3(write, writes).
•
•
Head
•
Goal •
past_part(Verb, Word) :-
4 terms, past(Verb, Word).
2 clauses past_tense(Verb, Word) :- Rules
past(Verb, Word).

Martin Kay Introduction to Prolog 14

 The =/2 operator
| ?- X=foo.

X = foo ?

yes
| ?- X=Y.

Y=X?

yes
| ?- foo(A, b)=foo(a, B).

A = a,
B=b?

yes

Martin Kay Introduction to Prolog 15

 Unification
| ?- p(a, Q, b) = p(A, A, A).

no
| ?- p(a, Q, R) = p(A, A, A).

A = a,
Q = a,
R=a

yes
| ?- p(q(a, a), r(X, X), s(Y, Y))=p(X, Y, Z).

X = q(a,a),
Y = r(q(a,a),q(a,a)),
Z = s(r(q(a,a),q(a,a)),r(q(a,a),q(a,a))) ?

yes

Martin Kay Introduction to Prolog 16

 Ordered Pairs

| ?- X=[a | [b | [c | []]]].
X=[a, b, c]

yes
| ?- X=[a | b].
X=[a | b]

yes

Martin Kay Introduction to Prolog 17

 member/2
| ?- member(b, [a,b,c]).

yes
| ?- member(X, [a, b, c]).

X=a?; member(H,
member(H,[H|_]).
[H|_]).
member(X,
member(X,[_|T])
[_|T]):-:-
X=b?; member(X,
member(X,T).T).
X=c?;

no
| ?- member(a, [X, b, Y]).

X=a?;

Y=a?;

no

Martin Kay Introduction to Prolog 18

 append/3
| ?- append([a, b, c], [p, q, r], X).

X = [a,b,c,p,q,r] ?

yes
| ?- append([a, b, c], X, [a, b, c, d, e, f]).

append([],
append([],A,
A,A).
A).
X = [d,e,f] ?
append([C|D],
append([C|D],A,
A,[C|B])
[C|B]):-:-
append(D,
append(D,A,
A,B).
B).
yes
| ?- append(X, [d, e, f],[a, b, c, d, e, f]).

X = [a,b,c] ?

yes

Martin Kay Introduction to Prolog 19

 (Naive) reverse/2
| ?- reverse([a, b, c], X).

X = [c,b,a] ?

yes
| ?- reverse(X, [a, b, c]). reverse([],
reverse([],[]).
[]).
reverse([H|T],
reverse([H|T],Rev)
Rev):-:-
X = [c,b,a] ? reverse(T,
reverse(T,RT),
RT),
append(RT,
append(RT,[H],[H],Rev).
Rev).
yes
| ?- X=[a, b, B, A], reverse(X, X).

A = a,
B = b,
X = [a,b,b,a] ?

yes

Martin Kay Introduction to Prolog 20

 Interrupting Prolog
foo(a, b).
^C
Prolog interruption (h for help)? a
{Execution aborted}
| ?-

Martin Kay Introduction to Prolog 21