Programming

Paradigms
CSI2120

Jochen Lang
EECS, University of Ottawa
Canada
Logic Programming in Prolog

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

CSI2120: Programming Paradigms

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

CSI2120: Programming Paradigms

The Birth of Prolog
• User: Cats kill mice. Tom is a cat who does not like mice who eat
cheese. Jerry is a mouse who eats cheese. Max is not a mouse.
What does Tom do?
• Computer: Tom does not like mice who eat cheese. Tom kills
mice.
• User: Who is a cat?
• Computer: Tom.
• User: What does Jerry eat?
• Computer: Cheese.
• User: Who does not like mice who eat cheese?
• Computer: Tom.
• User: What does Tom eat?
• Computer: What cats who do not like mice who eat cheese eat.

Alain Colmerauer and Philippe Roussel. The birth of Prolog. In History of programming languages---II,
ACM, New York, NY, USA 331-367, 1996.

CSI2120: Programming Paradigms

Basis of Conversation

• The logical formulas created made use of:

• constants representing elements
– Tom, Jerry, Max, Cheese
• constants representing sets,
– Cats, Mice, MiceWhoEatCheese,
CatsWhoDoNotLikeMiceWhoEatCheese;
• constants representing binary relations between sets,
– Kill, DoesNotLike, Eat;
• a functional symbol of arity 1 and two relational symbols of
arity 2 and 3,
– The, Subset, True.
Alain Colmerauer and Philippe Roussel. The birth of Prolog. In History of programming languages---II,
ACM, New York, NY, USA 331-367, 1996.

CSI2120: Programming Paradigms

Logical Clauses relating the Symbols

∀x Subset x, x ,
∀ ∀ ∀ , ∧ , → , ,
∀a ∀ ℎ , ℎ → ℎ , ℎ ,
∀x ∀ ∀r ∀ ′ ∀y′
, , ∧ , ! ∧ , ′ → , ′, ′ .

ℎ is a set with a single element.

Alain Colmerauer and Philippe Roussel. The birth of Prolog. In History of programming languages---II,
ACM, New York, NY, USA 331-367, 1996.

CSI2120: Programming Paradigms

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

CSI2120: Programming Paradigms

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

CSI2120: Programming Paradigms

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

CSI2120: Programming Paradigms

First Order Logic

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

CSI2120: Programming Paradigms

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.

CSI2120: Programming Paradigms

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, in this case “liker” is first,
“liked” is second, i.e., like(cats,dogs). is a different
fact.

CSI2120: Programming Paradigms

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

CSI2120: Programming Paradigms

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

CSI2120: Programming Paradigms

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)

CSI2120: Programming Paradigms

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.

CSI2120: Programming Paradigms

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).

CSI2120: Programming Paradigms

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.

CSI2120: Programming Paradigms

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.

CSI2120: Programming Paradigms

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”

CSI2120: Programming Paradigms

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)

CSI2120: Programming Paradigms

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.

CSI2120: Programming Paradigms

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 "."

CSI2120: Programming Paradigms

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.

CSI2120: Programming Paradigms

Summary

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

CSI2120: Programming Paradigms