Related
Let's say I have this Prolog program:
loves(vincent, mia).
loves(marcellus, mia).
jealous(A, B) :- loves(A, C), loves(B, C).
With query jealous(A,B). I'm very new to Prolog and I'd like to know how is it possible to see the exact order the program will be running and taking its ways for this query? I have tried using trace, jealous(A,B). command but it has only given me that:
Isn't there any more detailed solution for that? :/
Have you seen the Prolog Visualizer?
When you get to the page be sure to click on the icons in the upper right to learn more.
Enjoy.
Screenshot after step 10 of 49.
Screenshot for example given after all steps.
The Prolog Visualizer uses a slightly nonstandard way to enter a query by ending the query with a question mark (?), e.g.
jealous(A,B)?
If you do not post a query in the input area on the left you will receive an error, e.g.
The input for the Prolog Visualizer for your example is
loves(vincent, mia).
loves(marcellus, mia).
jealous(A, B) :- loves(A, C), loves(B, C).
jealous(A,B)?
When the Prolog Visualizer completes your example, notice the four results in green on the right
If you are using SWI-Prolog and after you understand syntactic unification, backtracking and write more advanced code you will find this of use:
Overview of the SWI Prolog Graphical Debugger
For other useful Prolog references see: Useful Prolog references
If the Prolog system has callable_property/2 and sys_rule/3, then one can code
a smart "unify" port as follows, showing most general unifiers (mgu's`):
:- op(1200, fx, ?-).
% solve(+Goal, +Assoc, +Integer, -Assoc)
solve(true, L, _, L) :- !.
solve((A, B), L, P, R) :- !, solve(A, L, P, H), solve(B, H, P, R).
solve(H, L, P, R) :- functor(H, F, A), sys_rule(F/A, J, B),
callable_property(J, sys_variable_names(N)),
number_codes(P, U), atom_codes(V, [0'_|U]), shift(N, V, W),
append(L, W, M), H = J, reverse(M, Z), triage(M, Z, I, K),
offset(P), write_term(I, [variable_names(Z)]), nl,
O is P+1, solve(B, K, O, R).
% triage(+Assoc, +Assoc, -Assoc, -Assoc)
triage([V=T|L], M, R, [V=T|S]) :- var(T), once((member(W=U, M), U==T)), W==V, !,
triage(L, M, R, S).
triage([V=T|L], M, [V=T|R], S) :-
triage(L, M, R, S).
triage([], _, [], []).
% shift(+Assoc, +Atom, -Assoc)
shift([V=T|L], N, [W=T|R]) :-
atom_concat(V, N, W),
shift(L, N, R).
shift([], _, []).
% offset(+Integer)
offset(1) :- !.
offset(N) :- write('\t'), M is N-1, offset(M).
% ?- Goal
(?- G) :-
callable_property(G, sys_variable_names(N)),
shift(N, '_0', M),
solve(G, M, 1, _).
Its not necessary to modify mgu's retrospectively, since a solution to a
Prolog query is the sequential composition of mgu's. Here is an example run:
?- ?- jealous(A,B).
[A_0 = X_1, B_0 = Y_1]
[H_1 = mia, X_1 = vincent]
[Y_1 = vincent]
A = vincent,
B = vincent ;
[Y_1 = marcellus]
A = vincent,
B = marcellus ;
Etc..
This is a preview of Jekejeke Prolog 1.5.0 the new
predicate sys_rule/3, its inspired by the new
predicate rule/2 of SWI-Prolog, but keeps the
clause/2 argument of head and body and uses a predicate
indicator.
I have two, slightly different, implementations of a predicate, unique_element/2, in Prolog. The predicate succeeds when given an element X and a list L, the element X appears only once in the list. Below are the implementations and the results:
Implementation 1:
%%% unique_element/2
unique_element(Elem, [Elem|T]) :-
not(member(Elem, T)).
unique_element(Elem, [H|T]) :-
member(Elem, T),
H\==Elem,
unique_element(Elem, T),
!.
Results:
?- unique_element(X, [a, a, b, c, c, b]).
false.
?- unique_element(X, [a, b, c, c, b, d]).
X = a ;
X = d.
Implementation 2:
%%% unique_element/2
unique_element(Elem, [Elem|T]) :-
not(member(Elem, T)).
unique_element(Elem, [H|T]) :-
H\==Elem,
member(Elem, T),
unique_element(Elem, T),
!.
In case you didn't notice at first sight: H\==Elem and member(Elem, T) are flipped on the 2nd impl, rule 2.
Results:
?- unique_element(X, [a, a, b, c, c, b]).
X = a.
?- unique_element(X, [a, b, c, c, b, d]).
X = a ;
X = d.
Question: How does the order, in this case, affect the result? I realize that the order of the rules/facts/etc matters. The two specific rules that are flipped though, don't seem to be "connected" or affect each other somehow (e.g. a cut in the wrong place/order).
Note: We are talking about SWI-Prolog here.
Note 2: I am aware of, probably different and better implementations. My question here is about the order of sub-goals being changed.
H\==Elem is testing for syntactic inequality at the point in time when the goal is executed. But later unification might make variables identical:
?- H\==Elem, H = Elem.
H = Elem.
?- H\==Elem, H = Elem, H\==Elem.
false.
So here we test if they are (syntactically) different, and then they are unified nevertheless and thus are no longer different. It is thus just a temporary test.
The goal member(Elem, T) on the other hand is true if that Elem is actually an element of T. Consider:
?- member(Elem, [X]).
Elem = X.
Which can be read as
(When) does it hold that Elem is an element of the list [X]?
and the answer is
It holds under certain circumstances, namely when Elem = X.
If you now mix those different kinds of goals in your programs you get odd results that can only explained by inspecting your program in detail.
As a beginner, it is best to stick to the pure parts of Prolog only. In your case:
use dif/2 in place of \==
do not use cuts - in your case it limits the number of answers to two. As in
unique_element(X, [a,b,c])
do not use not/1 nor (\+)/1. It produces even more incorrectness. Consider unique_element(a,[a,X]),X=b. which incorrectly fails while X=b,unique_element(a,[a,X]) correctly succeeds.
Here is a directly purified version of your program. There is still room for improvement!
non_member(_X, []).
non_member(X, [E|Es]) :-
dif(X, E),
non_member(X, Es).
unique_element(Elem, [Elem|T]) :-
non_member(Elem, T).
unique_element(Elem, [H|T]) :-
dif(H,Elem),
% member(Elem, T), % makes unique_element(a,[b,a,a|Xs]) loop
unique_element(Elem, T).
?- unique_element(a,[a,X]).
dif(X, a)
; false. % superfluous
?- unique_element(X,[E1,E2,E3]).
X = E1, dif(E1, E3), dif(E1, E2)
; X = E2, dif(E2, E3), dif(E1, E2)
; X = E3, dif(E2, E3), dif(E1, E3)
; false.
Note how the last query reads?
When is X a unique element of (any) list [E1,E2,E3]?
The answer is threefold. Considering one element after the other:
X is E1 but only if it is different to E2 and E3
etc.
TL;DR: Read the documentation and figure out why:
?- X = a, X \== a.
false.
?- X \== a, X = a.
X = a.
I wonder why you stop so close from figuring it out yourself ;-)
There are too many ways to compare things in Prolog. At the very least, you have unification, which sometimes can compare, and sometimes does more; than you have equvalence, and its negation, the one you are using. So what does it do:
?- a \== b. % two different ground terms
true.
?- a \== a. % the same ground term
false.
Now it gets interesting:
?- X \== a. % a free variable and a ground term
true.
?- X \== X. % the same free variable
false.
?- X \== Y. % two different free variables
true.
I would suggest that you do the following: figure out how member/2 does its thing (does it use unification? equivalence? something else?) then replace whatever member/2 is using in all the examples above and see if the results are any different.
And since you are trying to make sure that things are different, try out what dif/2 does. As in:
?- dif(a, b).
or
?- dif(X, X).
or
?- dif(X, a).
and so on.
See also this question and answers: I think the answers are relevant to your question.
Hope that helps.
Here is another possibility do define unique_element/2 using if_/3 and maplist/2:
:- use_module(library(apply)).
unique_element(Y,[X|Xs]) :-
if_(Y=X,maplist(dif(Y),Xs),unique_element(Y,Xs)).
In contrast to #user27815's very elegant solution (+s(0)) this version does not build on clpfd (used by tcount/3). The example queries given by the OP work as expected:
?- unique_element(a,[a, a, b, c, c, b]).
no
?- unique_element(X,[a, b, c, c, b, d]).
X = a ? ;
X = d ? ;
no
The example provided by #false now succeeds without leaving a superfluous choicepoint:
?- unique_element(a,[a,X]).
dif(a,X)
The other more general query yields the same results:
?- unique_element(X,[E1,E2,E3]).
E1 = X,
dif(X,E3),
dif(X,E2) ? ;
E2 = X,
dif(X,E3),
dif(X,E1) ? ;
E3 = X,
dif(X,E2),
dif(X,E1) ? ;
no
Can you not define unique_element like tcount Prolog - count repetitions in list
unique_element(X, List):- tcount(=(X),List,1).
how can i simulate this code in Prolog?
// L = an existing list ;
// function foo(var X, var Y)
result = new List();
for(int i=0;i<L.length;i++)
for(int j=0;j<L.length;j++){
result.add(foo(L.get(i), L.get(j));
}
nested loops are basically joins between sequences, and most of lists processing in Prolog is best expressed without indexing:
?- L=[a,b,c], findall(foo(X,Y), (member(X,L),member(Y,L)), R).
L = [a, b, c],
R = [foo(a, a), foo(a, b), foo(a, c), foo(b, a), foo(b, b), foo(b, c), foo(c, a), foo(c, b), foo(..., ...)].
edit
Sometime integers allow to capture the meaning in a simple way. As an example, my solution for one of the easier of Prolog context quizzes.
icecream(N) :-
loop(N, top(N)),
left, loop(N+1, center), nl,
loop(N+1, bottom(N)).
:- meta_predicate loop(+, 1).
loop(XH, PR) :-
H is XH,
forall(between(1, H, I), call(PR, I)).
top(N, I) :-
left, spc(N-I+1), pop,
( I > 1
-> pop,
spc(2*(I-2)),
pcl
; true
),
pcl, nl.
bottom(N, I) :-
left, spc(I-1), put(\), spc(2*(N-I+1)), put(/), nl.
center(_) :- put(/), put(\).
left :- spc(4).
pop :- put(0'().
pcl :- put(0')).
spc(Ex) :- V is Ex, forall(between(1, V, _), put(0' )).
Running in SWI-Prolog:
?- icecream(3).
()
(())
(( ))
/\/\/\/\
\ /
\ /
\ /
\/
true.
?- forall(loop(3,[X]>>loop(2,{X}/[Y]>>writeln(X-Y))),true).
1-1
1-2
2-1
2-2
3-1
3-2
true.
You can define a forto/4 meta-predicate easily. An example, taken from the Logtalk library loop object:
:- meta_predicate(forto(*, *, *, 0)).
forto(Count, FirstExp, LastExp, Goal) :-
First is FirstExp,
Last is LastExp,
forto_aux(Count, First, Last, 1, Goal).
:- meta_predicate(forto_aux(*, *, *, *, 0)).
forto_aux(Count, First, Last, Increment, Goal) :-
( First =< Last ->
\+ \+ (Count = First, call(Goal)),
Next is First + Increment,
forto_aux(Count, Next, Last, Increment, Goal)
; true
).
Example goal:
?- loop::forto(I, 1, 2, loop::forto(J, 1, 3, (write(I-J), nl))).
1-1
1-2
1-3
2-1
2-2
2-3
true.
Some Prolog compilers also provide built-in or library support for "logical loops" with good expressive power. Examples are (in alphabetic order) B-Prolog, ECLiPSe, and SICStus Prolog. Check the documentation of those systems for details. If you need a portable solution across most Prolog systems, check Logtalk's library documentation. Or simply take the above examples and define your own loop meta-predicates.
you can use this predicate using SICStus-prolog for looping variables I,J until N and get all of them inside fact foo/2 mentioned below successively ;
Code
loop(N) :- for(I,0,N),param(N) do
for(J,0,N),param(I) do
write(foo(I,J)),nl.
Result
| ?- loop(2).
foo(0,0)
foo(0,1)
foo(0,2)
foo(1,0)
foo(1,1)
foo(1,2)
foo(2,0)
foo(2,1)
foo(2,2)
yes
Given the following code:
fun(a, [b]).
fun(b, [c]).
fun(c, [d]).
fun(d, [e]).
fun(e, []).
xyz(X, Y):-
fun(X,Z) -> findall([A|B], (member(A,Z), xyz(A,B)), L),
flatten(L,F), sort(F,J), reverse(J,Y); Y = [].
With the query xyz(a,X) I get the expected output X = [e,d,c,b]..
What could possibly be throwing this off? Does this have to do with the sort function? If so, according to the documents in the links below, alpha or numeric order of precedence could be throwing this off, but it still doesn't explain by cs40 is going before cs30. I am having a hard time finding a correlation. How can I fix this issue?
http://www.swi-prolog.org/pldoc/doc_for?object=sort/2
http://www.swi-prolog.org/pldoc/man?section=compare
By the way, the fun function could have multi-element lists such as fun(a, [b,c], where a has multiple dependencies b and c. This aspect shouldn't matter too much regarding the current issue that I have, but just getting this fact out there.
UPDATE
Thanks to #lurker, I've made some great progress.
Given the following code:
final_xyz(X, Y):- xyz(X, R), reverse(R, Y).
xyz(X, Y) :-
fun(X,Z) -> findall([A|B], (member(A,Z), xyz(A,B)), L),
flatten(L,Y); Y = [].
In an attempt to fix this, I updated the code to:
xyz-final(X,Y):-
fun(X,Z),
Z\=0,
( length(Z,1) -> xyz(X,J), reverse(J,Y)
;
xyz2(X,B), sort(B,C), reverse(C,Y)
).
xyz(K, [X|Y]):- fun(K, [X]), !, xyz(X, Y).
xyz(_, []).
xyz2(X, Y) :-
fun(X,Z) -> findall([A|B], (member(A,Z), xyz2(A,B)), L),
flatten(L,Y); Y = [].
Very clumsy approach, but this seems to work for me now. I'll work on making it more efficient.
The issue is that you are wanting to reverse the final result, but your reverse is being done in each recursive call to xyz/2. If you do a trace on your xyz(cs140a, X) call, you'll see it's being called a few times on different recursions.
If you want it once at the end, then you can write it this way:
final_xyz(X, Y) :-
xyz(X, R),
reverse(R, Y).
xyz(X, Y) :-
fun(X,Z) -> findall([A|B], (member(A,Z), xyz(A,B)), L),
flatten(L,Y); Y = [].
And then calling final_xyz(cs140a, X) yields, X = [m16a,cs30,cs40,cs110].
Here's an alternative approach to your xyz predicate which avoids the findall and the flatten. This version should avoid cyclical paths and doesn't show duplicates:
xyz(X, Y) :-
fun(X, L),
xyz(L, [], R),
reverse(R, Y).
xyz([H|T], A, R) :-
( memberchk(H, A)
-> xyz(T, A, R)
; fun(H, L)
-> xyz(L, [H|A], R1),
xyz(T, R1, R)
; xyz(T, [H|A], R)
).
xyz([], A, A).
How to define in ISO Prolog a (meta-logical) predicate for the intersection of two lists of variables that runs in linear time? The variables may appear in any determined order. No implementation dependent property like the "age" of variables must influence the outcome.
In analogy to library(ordsets), let's call the relation varset_intersection(As, Bs, As_cap_Bs).
?- varset_intersection([A,B], [C,D], []).
true.
?-varset_intersection([A,B], [B,A], []).
false.
?- varset_intersection([A,B,C], [C,A,D], Inter).
Inter = [A,C].
or
Inter = [C,A].
?- varset_intersection([A,B],[A,B],[A,C]).
B = C
or
A = B, A = C
?- varset_intersection([A,B,C],[A,B],[A,C]).
idem
That is, the third argument is an output argument, that unifies with the intersection of the first two arguments.
See this list of the built-ins from the current ISO standard (ISO/IEC 13211-1:1995 including Cor.2).
(Note, that I did answer this question in the course of another one several years ago. However, it remains hidden and invisible to Google.)
If term_variables/2 works in a time linear with the size of its first argument, then this might work:
varset_intersection(As, Bs, As_cap_Bs):-
term_variables([As, Bs], As_and_Bs),
term_variables(As, SetAs),
append(SetAs, OnlyBs, As_and_Bs),
term_variables([OnlyBs, Bs], SetBs),
append(OnlyBs, As_cap_Bs, SetBs).
Each common variable appears only once in the result list no matter how many times it appears in the two given lists.
?- varset_intersection2([A,_C,A,A,A], [A,_B,A,A,A], L).
L = [A].
Also, it might give strange results as in this case:
?- varset_intersection([A,_X,B,C], [B,C,_Y,A], [C, A, B]).
A = B, B = C.
(permutation/2 might help here).
If copy_term/2 uses linear time, I believe the following works:
varset_intersection(As, Bs, Cs) :-
copy_term(As-Bs, CopyAs-CopyBs),
ground_list(CopyAs),
select_grounded(CopyBs, Bs, Cs).
ground_list([]).
ground_list([a|Xs]) :-
ground_list(Xs).
select_grounded([], [], []).
select_grounded([X|Xs], [_|Bs], Cs) :-
var(X),
!,
select_grounded(Xs, Bs, Cs).
select_grounded([_|Xs], [B|Bs], [B|Cs]) :-
select_grounded(Xs, Bs, Cs).
The idea is to copy both lists in one call to copy_term/2 to preserve shared variables between them, then ground the variables of the first copy, then pick out the original variables of the second list corresponding to the grounded positions of the second copy.
If unify_with_occurs_check(Var, ListOfVars) fails or succeeds in constant time, this implementation should yield answers in linear time:
filter_vars([], _, Acc, Acc).
filter_vars([A|As], Bs, Acc, As_cap_Bs):-
(
\+ unify_with_occurs_check(A, Bs)
->
filter_vars(As, Bs, [A|Acc], As_cap_Bs)
;
filter_vars(As, Bs, Acc, As_cap_Bs)
).
varset_intersection(As, Bs, As_cap_Bs):-
filter_vars(As, Bs, [], Inter),
permutation(Inter, As_cap_Bs).
This implementation has problems when given lists contain duplicates:
?- varset_intersection1([A,A,A,A,B], [B,A], L).
L = [B, A, A, A, A] ;
?- varset_intersection1([B,A], [A,A,A,A,B], L).
L = [A, B] ;
Edited : changed bagof/3 to a manually written filter thanks to observation by #false in comments below.
A possible solution is to use a Bloom filter. In case of collision, the result might be wrong, but functions with better collision resistance exist. Here is an implementation that uses a single hash function.
sum_codes([], _, Sum, Sum).
sum_codes([Head|Tail], K, Acc,Sum):-
Acc1 is Head * (256 ** K) + Acc,
K1 is (K + 1) mod 4,
sum_codes(Tail, K1, Acc1, Sum).
hash_func(Var, HashValue):-
with_output_to(atom(A), write(Var)),
atom_codes(A, Codes),
sum_codes(Codes, 0, 0, Sum),
HashValue is Sum mod 1024.
add_to_bitarray(Var, BAIn, BAOut):-
hash_func(Var, HashValue),
BAOut is BAIn \/ (1 << HashValue).
bitarray_contains(BA, Var):-
hash_func(Var, HashValue),
R is BA /\ (1 << HashValue),
R > 0.
varset_intersection(As, Bs, As_cap_Bs):-
foldl(add_to_bitarray, As, 0, BA),
include(bitarray_contains(BA), Bs, As_cap_Bs).
I know that foldl/4 and include/3 are not ISO, but their implementation is easy.