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A relation definition consists of a sequence of rules (clauses) of the form
Head ::
Commit <=
Body
where Head is an atom or simple compound term, Commit
is a conjunct of goals, and Body is a conjunct of goals. Conjuncts are separated by &
. Both the
::
Commit and <=
Body
parts of the rule are optional.
The heads of each rule of a relation have the same
functor and arity.
When a goal Goal with the same functor and arity as Head
is called, the rules of the relation are tried in order. If Goal
unifies with the head of the rule then the Commit part is called.
If that succeeds then this rule is committed to (i.e. no subsequent rules
are tried on backtracking) and Goal succeeds if and only if
Body succeeds. If Body is not present it is treated as being
the goal true
.
If Commit is not present then Goal succeeds if Body succeeds but, on backtracking, subsequent rules will be tried.
The rule has the same semantics as the Prolog rule
Head :-
Commit, !,
Body
Note, however, that cut (!
) is not part of Qulog.
As examples, the definitions of the relations greater
and sum_list
are given below.
greater: (!num, !num, ?num) <= greater(A, B, C) :: A > B <= C = A greater(A, B, C) :: B > A <= C = B sum_list : (![num], ?num) <= sum_list([], 0) sum_list([H,..T], N) <= sum_list(T, M) & N = H+M
Note that in N = H+M
, H+M
is evaluated before unification
and that the second rule of greater
could have been written as
greater(A, B, C) <= B > A & C = B
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