The Prolog Language

by Piyabut Thavilthicakul 49540552

When the language first designed?

Prolog first designed in very early 1970s.The first Prolog interpreter was developed

in 1972.

What were goals and purpose of Prolog?

Prolog designed to be a logic programming language that use declarative semantics.

What kind of problem domain was Prolog intended for?

Prolog intended for use in Artificial Intelligence domains.For example :

Natural Language Processing Intelligent database

Who were the envisioned users?

Software EngineersMathematiciansComputer ScientistsLinguisticsOthers that using logic

What are some main features or distinctive features of the Prolog?

Method for specifying predicate calculus propositions and an implementation of a restricted from of resolution.

Who designed the Prolog language?

Prolog designed by Alian Colmerauer and Phillippe Roussel with some assistance from Robert Kowalski.

How successful was the Prolog?

Fifth Generation Computer Systems project (FGCS) chose Prolog for develop the project but later it ran into difficulty because at that time Prolog did not support concurrency.

How widely of the Prolog used today?

Prolog is not widely used because it designed to use in a few small areas of application.

There are several Prolog IDE and compiler. Visual-Prolog is commercial Prolog IDE but it also has

Personal Edition for free. SWI-Prolog is free Prolog IDE widely use in research and

education. GNU Prolog is free Prolog compiler supports many operating

system.

How to perform some numerical computation in Prolog?

To * :F is 3*10.

// returnF = 30

To + :F is 3+10.// returnF = 13

How to input and output different kinds of data, such as integers, floating pt and String?

To input an integer:read(X).

|: 10. X=10 // result

To input a floating pt:read(X).

|: 4.000.X=4.0 // result

To input a string:read(X).|:’Hello, A Where are

u?’. // result

X=‘Hello, A Where are u?’

How to write and invoke a function or procedure?

// factorial function

factorial(0,1).

factorial(N,F) :- N>0, N1 is N-1, factorial(N1,F1), F is N * F1.

// using a factorial function to find what is factorial of 3.

?- factorial(3,W). // return

W=6

References

Book: Concepts of Programming Languages by Robert W. Sebesta.

Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prologhttp://www.csupomona.edu/~jrfisher

/www/prolog_tutorial/contents.html