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P#: a concurrent Prolog for the .NET framework
Author(s) -
Cook Jonathan J.
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
software: practice and experience
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.437
H-Index - 70
eISSN - 1097-024X
pISSN - 0038-0644
DOI - 10.1002/spe.594
Subject(s) - prolog , programming language , computer science , logic programming , programmer , unification , datalog , constraint programming , predicate (mathematical logic) , intrinsics , parallel computing , mathematics , statistics , stochastic programming
We discuss P#, our implementation of a tool that allows interoperation between a concurrent superset of the Prolog programming language and C#. This enables Prolog to be used as a native implementation language for Microsoft's .NET platform. P# compiles a linear logic extension of Prolog to C# source code. We can thus create C# objects from Prolog and use C#'s graphical, networking and other libraries. We add language constructs on the Prolog side that allow concurrent Prolog code to be written. A primitive predicate is provided that evaluates a Prolog structure on a newly forked thread. Communication between threads is based on the unification of variables contained in such a structure. It is also possible for threads to communicate through a globally accessible table. All of the new features are available to the programmer through new built‐in Prolog predicates. We discuss two software engineering tools implemented using P#. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.