125

Prolog Tutorial

What is Prolog

• Prolog stands for programming in logic. In the logic programming paradigm, prolog language is most widely available. Prolog is a declarative language, which means that a program consists of data based on the facts and rules (Logical relationship) rather than computing how to find a solution. A logical relationship describes the relationships which hold for the given application.
• To obtain the solution, the user asks a question rather than running a program. When a user asks a question, then to determine the answer, the run time system searches through the database of facts and rules.
• The first Prolog was ‘Marseille Prolog’, which is based on work by Colmerauer. The major example of fourth-generation programming language was prolog. It supports the declarative programming paradigm.
• In 1981, a Japanese computer Project of 5^th generation was announced. After that, it was adopted Prolog as a development language. In this tutorial, the program was written in the ‘Standard’ Edinburgh Prolog. Prologs of PrologII family are the other kind of prologs which are descendants of Marseille Prolog.
• Prolog features are ‘Logical variable’, which means that they behave like uniform data structure, a backtracking strategy to search for proofs, a pattern-matching facility, mathematical variable, and input and out are interchangeable.
• To deduce the answer, there will be more than one way. In such case, the run time system will be asked to find another solution. To generate another solution, use the backtracking strategy. Prolog is a weakly typed language with static scope rules and dynamic type checking.
• Prolog is a declarative language that means we can specify what problem we want to solve rather than how to solve it.
• Prolog is used in some areas like database, natural language processing, artificial intelligence, but it is pretty useless in some areas like a numerical algorithm or instance graphics.
• In artificial intelligence applications, prolog is used. The artificial intelligence applications can be automated reasoning systems, natural language interfaces, and expert systems. The expert system consists of an interface engine and a database of facts. The prolog’s run time system provides the service of an interface engine.
• A basic logic programming environment has no literal values. An identifier with upper case letters and other identifiers denote variables. Identifiers that start with lower-case letters denote data values. The basic Prolog elements are typeless. The most implementations of prolog have been enhanced to include integer value, characters, and operations. The Mechanism of prolog describes the tuples and lists.
• Functional programming language and prolog have some similarities like Hugs. A logic program is used to consist of relation definition. A functional programming language is used to consist of a sequence of function definitions. Both the logical programming and functional programming rely heavily on recursive definitions.

Applications of Prolog

The applications of prolog are as follows:

• Specification Language
• Robot Planning
• Natural language understanding
• Machine Learning
• Problem Solving
• Intelligent Database retrieval
• Expert System
• Automated Reasoning

Prerequisite

Before learning Prolog,

Audience

Our Prolog tutorial is designed to help beginners and professionals.

Problems

We assure that you will not find any problem in this Prolog Tutorial. But if there is any mistake, please post the problem in a contact form.

---