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5 Prolog Intro

The document provides an overview of logic programming using Prolog, including its history and applications. It describes the basic components of Prolog including facts, rules, queries, variables, and how Prolog searches its database and instantiates variables to answer queries.

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27 views

5 Prolog Intro

The document provides an overview of logic programming using Prolog, including its history and applications. It describes the basic components of Prolog including facts, rules, queries, variables, and how Prolog searches its database and instantiates variables to answer queries.

Uploaded by

dongmianjun
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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CSI2120 A

Programming Paradigms

1
• Course overview
• Introduction to programming
paradigms
• Review: The object-oriented
Topics paradigm in Java
• Imperative and concurrent
programming paradigm: Go.
• Logic paradigm: Prolog.
• Functional paradigm: Scheme.
• Quiz 2 is available ends on
Thursday Feb 4th
• Quiz 1 ends on Thursday Jan 28th
Announcement • Assignment 1 – late submission
ends Jan 27th
• Comprehensive assignment –
Part 2 – GO will be uploaded soon
The slides posted through the term are based of the
slides offered by:
Prof. Robert Laganiere
Prof. Jochen Lang
Acknowledgment Demo code:
https://www.site.uottawa.ca/~jl
ang/CSI2120/demoCode.html
Logic Programming in Prolog

• History
• Logic Programming
• Prolog
– facts and rules
– atoms and variables
• Queries
– Search
– Variable instantiation
– Unification
• First Examples
Prolog History

• Paradigm: declarative, logic programming

• 1972: A. Colmerauer and P. Roussel, Marseille, created


the language
– Envisioned application was natural language
processing
• 1977: First compiler by D.H. Warren, Edinburgh
• 1980: Borland Turbo Prolog
• 1995: ISO Prolog
Applications
• Applications of declarative, logic programming:
– symbolic computation (i.e. non-numeric)
• Symbolic computation applications include:
– Many areas of artificial intelligence (property of
declarative)
– Understanding natural language (specific to logic
programming)
– Relational databases
– Mathematical logic
– Abstract problem solving
– Design automation
– Symbolic equation solving
– Biochemical structure analysis
Programming in Prolog

Prolog is descriptive (as opposed to prescriptive)

• descriptive: describing known facts and relationships (or


rules) about a
– specific problem
• as opposed to
– prescriptive: prescribing the sequence of steps taken
by a computer to solve a specific problem
Programming Steps in Prolog
• Specify Facts
– which are true in a problem domain. Will remain true
forever.
• Define rules
– which when applied establish new facts.
• Start queries
– and the prolog interpreter answers
• Prolog uses first order logic to prove answers
– It answers Yes following a successfully proven
answer
– It answers No otherwise
• A no answer means it could not prove a positive
answer
First Order Logic

• Consists of
– predicate symbols
– equality
– negation
– logic binary connections
– quantifiers ‘for all …’ and ‘there exists … such that’
• More on this later …
Computation in Prolog

Specified by
• partly by the logical declarative semantics of Prolog
(more on this later),
• partly by what new facts Prolog can infer from the given
ones, and
• partly by explicit control information supplied by the
programmer.
– In other words Prolog has/requires some imperative,
or prescriptive features.
Facts

Example: “Dogs like cats” with individuals “dogs”, “cats”


and relationship “like”

In Prolog: like(dogs,cats).
• lower case for both individuals and relationships
• relationship (or predicate) is written first
• individuals (or arguments) are written in parenthesis,
separated by commas
• ends with a dot “.”
• order of arguments is important but it is up to us to
define, in this case “liker” is first, “liked” is second, i.e.,
like(cats,dogs). is a different fact.
More facts

Other examples:
domestic(cows). % cows are domestic animals.
faster(horses,cows). % horses run faster than cows
take(cats,milk,cows). % cats take milk from cows
isYellow(hay). % hay is yellow.
eat(cows,hay). % Cows eat hay.

• Constants or Atoms
– Example: cows, horses, hay, cats, milk
– Symbolic: small caps letter followed by letters and
numbers
– Numbers : integer and float
Interpretation of Facts

Is “cats” an individual?
Yes, but there is more than one way to interpret it.
• a particular type of cat, e.g., house cats
• a family of animals encompassing tigers, leopards, etc.

Either interpretation is fine. The program context will need


to define which one is meant.
• If a program needs more than one interpretation then
the names of the individuals have to be different, e.g.,
– houseCats and catsFamily
More on Facts

Arity of Predicates
Predicates can have an arbitrary number of arguments
domestic/1 isYellow/1 % 1 argument
faster/2 like/2 eat/2 % 2 arguments
takes/3 % 3 arguments

Facts that are false in the real world can be used.


• faster(snails,cheetahs).

Database
• a collection of facts (part of a program)
Queries or Questions

Questions are about individuals and their relationships

Example: ?- eat(cats,mice).
• Means "Do cats eat mice?" or "Is it a fact that cats eat
mice?"
• Note as before, cats are interpreted as a specific species
(house cats) and mice are all type of mice.
• Note that the syntax is the same as for facts, except for
the special symbol ?- (printed by the interpreter) to
distinguish from a fact.
A Database

like(horses,fish). Simple Queries


like(dogs,cats). ?- like(dogs,bones).
like(cats,mice). ?- like(cats,dogs).
like(dogs,mice).
?- like(cats,hay).
like(horses,racing).
like(cats,horses). ?- enjoy(horses,racing).
like(tigers,cats).
like(cats,hay).
like(cows,grass).
like(cows,hay).
like(horses,hay).
Variables

More interesting questions of the type: “Do cats like X?”


– We want Prolog to tell us what X could stand for.
– Prolog searches through all the facts to find things
cats like.
• In Prolog ?- like(cats,X).
– Variables start with uppercase letters.
How Prolog Answers
• When Prolog is first asked this question, variable X is
initially not instantiated.
• Prolog searches through the database, looking for a fact
that unifies with the question (or query or goal).
• If there is an uninstantiated variable as argument,
Prolog searches for any fact where the predicate is
“like” and the first argument is “cats”.
• When such a fact is found, X becomes instantiated with
the second argument of the fact.
• Prolog searches the facts in order (top to bottom).
• X is first instantiated to “mice".
• Prolog marks the place in the database where the
unifier is found.
Multiple Answers

• When entering ; we ask Prolog to re-satisfy the goal


– or to search for another solution

• Prolog resumes its search, starting from where it left


the place-marker.
• We are asking Prolog to re-satisfy the question, and
resume search with X uninstantiated again.
• After a ; false means “no more answers”
Conjunctions

“Do cats and dogs like each other?”


?- like(cats,dogs), like(dogs,cats).

Note
• , represents “and”
• can have any number of questions separated by ,
(comma) and ending with . (dot)
Example with Variables
“Is there anything that horses and cows both like?”
2 steps:
1. Find out if there is some X that cows like.
2. Then find out if horses like whatever X is.
?- like(cows,X), like(horses,X).
Note:
• After finding the first answer for X (hay), Prolog marks the
place in the database.
• Prolog attempts to satisfy the second goal (with X
instantiated).
• If it succeeds, Prolog marks (separately) that goal's place
in the database.
• Each goal keeps its own place-marker.
Rules

• A rule is a general statement about objects and their


relationships.
– “Horses like any type of animal who likes hay.” or, in
other words
– “Horses like X if X like hay.”
likes(horses,X) :- like(X,hay).
Note:
• A Prolog rule has a head and body, separated by ":-"
pronounced “if”.
• The head is on the left; the body is on the right.
• A rule ends in "."
Rules

• The head of the rule describes what fact the rule is


intended to define.
• The body can be a conjunction of goals.
– “Horses like X if X like hay and mice."
like(horses,X) :- like(X,hay), like(X,mice).
• There are 3 occurrences of X. Whenever X becomes
instantiated, all X's are instantiated to the same thing.
Summary

• Logic Programming
• Prolog
– facts and rules
– atoms and variables
• Queries
– Search
– Variable instantiation
– Unification
• First Examples

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