Table of Contents

• 1 Introduction
  • 1.1 SWI-Prolog
    • 1.1.1 Other books about Prolog
  • 1.2 Status
  • 1.3 Compliance to the ISO standard
  • 1.4 Should you be using SWI-Prolog?
  • 1.5 The XPCE GUI system for Prolog
  • 1.6 Release Notes
    • 1.6.1 Version 1.8 Release Notes
    • 1.6.2 Version 1.9 Release Notes
    • 1.6.3 Version 2.0 Release Notes
    • 1.6.4 Version 2.5 Release Notes
    • 1.6.5 Version 2.6 Release Notes
    • 1.6.6 Version 2.7 Release Notes
    • 1.6.7 Version 2.8 Release Notes
    • 1.6.8 Version 2.9 Release Notes
    • 1.6.9 Version 3.0 Release Notes
    • 1.6.10 Version 3.1 Release Notes
    • 1.6.11 Version 3.3 Release Notes
      • 1.6.11.1 Incompatible changes
    • 1.6.12 Version 3.4 Release Notes
    • 1.6.13 Version 4.0 Release Notes
  • 1.7 Acknowledgements
• 2 Overview
  • 2.1 Getting started quickly
    • 2.1.1 Starting SWI-Prolog
      • 2.1.1.1 Starting SWI-Prolog on Unix
      • 2.1.1.2 Starting SWI-Prolog on Windows
    • 2.1.2 Executing a query
  • 2.2 The user's initialisation file
  • 2.3 Initialisation files and goals
  • 2.4 Command line options
  • 2.5 GNU Emacs Interface
  • 2.6 Online Help
  • 2.7 Query Substitutions
    • 2.7.1 Limitations of the History System
  • 2.8 Reuse of toplevel bindings
  • 2.9 Overview of the Debugger
  • 2.10 Compilation
    • 2.10.1 During program development
    • 2.10.2 For running the result
      • 2.10.2.1 Creating a shell-script
      • 2.10.2.2 Creating a saved-state
      • 2.10.2.3 Compilation using the -c commandline option
  • 2.11 Environment Control (Prolog flags)
  • 2.12 An overview of hook predicates
  • 2.13 Automatic loading of libraries
  • 2.14 Garbage Collection
  • 2.15 Syntax Notes
    • 2.15.1 ISO Syntax Support
      • 2.15.1.1 Character Escape Syntax
      • 2.15.1.2 Syntax for non-decimal numbers
  • 2.16 System limits
    • 2.16.1 Limits on memory areas
      • 2.16.1.1 The heap
    • 2.16.2 Other Limits
    • 2.16.3 Reserved Names
• 3 Built-in predicates
  • 3.1 Notation of Predicate Descriptions
  • 3.2 Character representation
  • 3.3 Loading Prolog source files
    • 3.3.1 Quick load files
  • 3.4 Listing and Editor Interface
  • 3.5 Verify Type of a Term
  • 3.6 Comparison and Unification or Terms
    • 3.6.1 Standard Order of Terms
  • 3.7 Control Predicates
  • 3.8 Meta-Call Predicates
  • 3.9 ISO compliant Exception handling
    • 3.9.1 Debugging and exceptions
    • 3.9.2 The exception term
    • 3.9.3 Printing messages
  • 3.10 Handling signals
    • 3.10.1 Notes on signal handling
  • 3.11 The `block' control-structure
  • 3.12 DCG Grammar rules
  • 3.13 Database
    • 3.13.1 Update view
    • 3.13.2 Indexing databases
  • 3.14 Declaring predicates properties
  • 3.15 Examining the program
  • 3.16 Input and output
    • 3.16.1 Input and output using implicit source and destination
    • 3.16.2 Explicit Input and Output Streams
    • 3.16.3 Switching Between Implicit and Explicit I/O
  • 3.17 Status of streams
  • 3.18 Primitive character I/O
  • 3.19 Term reading and writing
  • 3.20 Analysing and Constructing Terms
  • 3.21 Analysing and constructing atoms
  • 3.22 Classifying characters
  • 3.23 Representing text in strings
  • 3.24 Operators
  • 3.25 Character Conversion
  • 3.26 Arithmetic
  • 3.27 Arithmetic Functions
  • 3.28 Adding Arithmetic Functions
  • 3.29 List Manipulation
  • 3.30 Set Manipulation
  • 3.31 Sorting Lists
  • 3.32 Finding all Solutions to a Goal
  • 3.33 Invoking Predicates on all Members of a List
  • 3.34 Forall
  • 3.35 Formatted Write
    • 3.35.1 Writef
    • 3.35.2 Format
    • 3.35.3 Programming Format
  • 3.36 Terminal Control
  • 3.37 Operating System Interaction
  • 3.38 File System Interaction
  • 3.39 Multi-threading (alpha code)
    • 3.39.1 Thread communication
    • 3.39.2 Thread synchronisation
    • 3.39.3 Thread-support library(threadutil)
    • 3.39.4 Status of the thread implementation
  • 3.40 User Toplevel Manipulation
  • 3.41 Creating a Protocol of the User Interaction
  • 3.42 Debugging and Tracing Programs
  • 3.43 Obtaining Runtime Statistics
  • 3.44 Finding Performance Bottlenecks
  • 3.45 Memory Management
  • 3.46 Windows DDE interface
    • 3.46.1 DDE client interface
    • 3.46.2 DDE server mode
  • 3.47 Miscellaneous
• 4 Using Modules
  • 4.1 Why Using Modules?
  • 4.2 Name-based versus Predicate-based Modules
  • 4.3 Defining a Module
  • 4.4 Importing Predicates into a Module
    • 4.4.1 Reserved Modules
  • 4.5 Using the Module System
    • 4.5.1 Object Oriented Programming
  • 4.6 Meta-Predicates in Modules
    • 4.6.1 Definition and Context Module
    • 4.6.2 Overruling Module Boundaries
  • 4.7 Dynamic Modules
  • 4.8 Module Handling Predicates
  • 4.9 Compatibility of the Module System
    • 4.9.1 Emulating meta_predicate/1
• 5 Foreign Language Interface
  • 5.1 Overview of the Interface
  • 5.2 Linking Foreign Modules
    • 5.2.1 What linking is provided?
    • 5.2.2 What kind of loading should I be using?
  • 5.3 Dynamic Linking of shared libraries
  • 5.4 Using the library shlib for .DLL and .so files
    • 5.4.1 Static Linking
  • 5.5 Interface Data types
    • 5.5.1 Type term_t: a reference to a Prolog term
      • 5.5.1.1 Interaction with the garbage collector and stack-shifter
    • 5.5.2 Other foreign interface types
  • 5.6 The Foreign Include File
    • 5.6.1 Argument Passing and Control
      • 5.6.1.1 Non-deterministic Foreign Predicates
    • 5.6.2 Atoms and functors
      • 5.6.2.1 Atoms and atom-garbage collection
    • 5.6.3 Analysing Terms via the Foreign Interface
      • 5.6.3.1 Testing the type of a term
      • 5.6.3.2 Reading data from a term
      • 5.6.3.3 Exchanging text using length and string
      • 5.6.3.4 Reading a list
      • 5.6.3.5 An example: defining write/1 in C
    • 5.6.4 Constructing Terms
    • 5.6.5 Unifying data
    • 5.6.6 Calling Prolog from C
      • 5.6.6.1 Predicate references
      • 5.6.6.2 Initiating a query from C
    • 5.6.7 Discarding Data
    • 5.6.8 Foreign Code and Modules
    • 5.6.9 Prolog exceptions in foreign code
    • 5.6.10 Foreign code and Prolog threads
    • 5.6.11 Miscellaneous
      • 5.6.11.1 Term Comparison
      • 5.6.11.2 Recorded database
    • 5.6.12 Catching Signals (Software Interrupts)
    • 5.6.13 Errors and warnings
    • 5.6.14 Environment Control from Foreign Code
    • 5.6.15 Querying Prolog
    • 5.6.16 Registering Foreign Predicates
    • 5.6.17 Foreign Code Hooks
    • 5.6.18 Storing foreign data
      • 5.6.18.1 Examples for storing foreign data
    • 5.6.19 Embedding SWI-Prolog in a C-program
  • 5.7 Linking embedded applications using plld
    • 5.7.1 A simple example
  • 5.8 The Prolog `home' directory
  • 5.9 Example of Using the Foreign Interface
  • 5.10 Notes on Using Foreign Code
    • 5.10.1 Memory Allocation
    • 5.10.2 Debugging Foreign Code
    • 5.10.3 Name Conflicts in C modules
    • 5.10.4 Compatibility of the Foreign Interface
• 6 Generating Runtime Applications
  • 6.1 Limitations of qsave_program
  • 6.2 Runtimes and Foreign Code
  • 6.3 Using program resources
    • 6.3.1 Predicates Definitions
    • 6.3.2 The plrc program
  • 6.4 Finding Application files
    • 6.4.1 Passing a path to the application
  • 6.5 The Runtime Environment
    • 6.5.1 The Runtime Emulator
• A Hackers corner
  • A.1 Examining the Environment Stack
  • A.2 Intercepting the Tracer
  • A.3 Hooks using the exception/3 predicate
  • A.4 Hooks for integrating libraries
  • A.5 Readline Interaction
• B Glossary of Terms
• C Summary
  • C.1 Predicates
  • C.2 Arithmetic Functions
  • C.3 Operators
• D Bibliography