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XSB: Extending Prolog with Tabled Logic Programming

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 December 2011

TERRANCE SWIFT  and
DAVID S. WARREN
TERRANCE SWIFT
Affiliation:
CENTRIA, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia, Univ. Nova de Lisboa, 2825-516 Caparica, Portugal (e-mail: tswift@cs.sunysb.edu)
DAVID S. WARREN
Affiliation:
Department of Computer Science, SUNY Stony Brook, Stony Brook, New York, USA (e-mail: warren@cs.sunysb.edu)
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Abstract

The paradigm of Tabled Logic Programming (TLP) is now supported by a number of Prolog systems, including XSB, YAP Prolog, B-Prolog, Mercury, ALS, and Ciao. The reasons for this are partly theoretical: tabling ensures termination and optimal known complexity for queries to a large class of programs. However, the overriding reasons are practical. TLP allows sophisticated programs to be written concisely and efficiently, especially when mechanisms such as tabled negation and call and answer subsumption are supported. As a result, TLP has now been used in a variety of applications from program analysis to querying over the semantic web. This paper provides a survey of TLP and its applications as implemented in the XSB Prolog, along with discussion of how XSB supports tabling with dynamically changing code, and in a multi-threaded environment.

Keywords

Prologtablingimplementationnon-monotonic reasoning

Information

Type
Regular Papers
Information
Theory and Practice of Logic Programming , Volume 12 , Special Issue 1-2: Prolog Systems , January 2012 , pp. 157 - 187
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

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