1. Prolog programming Introduction to Prolog
CS 461

2. What is Prolog programming?
Prolog is a programming language for symbolic , non-numeric commutation.
It solves problems that involve objects and relations between objects.

3. Defining relations by facts
The fact that Tom is a parent of Bob can be written in prolog as:
Parent(tom, bob).
tom and bob are objects,
Parent(tom, bob) is a relation between these objects.

4. Defining relations by facts
The whole family tree can be described by the following facts:
Parent(pam,bob).
Parent(tom,bob).
Parent(tom,liz).
Parent(bob,ann).
Parent(bob,pat).
Parent(pat,jim).
pam
tom
bob
liz
ann
pat
jim

5. Defining relations by facts
We can also add information about the sex of the people by the following facts:
female(pam).
male(tom).
male(bob).
female(liz).
female(pat).
female(ann).
male(jim).

6. Defining relations by facts
female(pam) is a Unary relation
parent(bob,pat) is a Binary relation.
Think about this relation:
Sex(pam, feminist).

7. Questions in prolog. Prolog can posed questions about any relation.
So, we can ask a question about Parent relation,
For example : Is bob a parent of Pat?
?- Parent(bob,pat).
The answer will be YES.

8. Questions in prolog.
Another question can be asked: Who is Liz’s parent?
?- Parent(X, liz).
The answer here will not be
Yes/No, rather, prolog will
find the value of X.
So the answer is : tom
pam
tom
bob
liz
ann
pat
jim

9. Class exercise(1) Who are bob’s children? Who is parent of whom? liz
pam
tom
bob
liz
ann
pat
jim

10. Questions in prolog.
In prolog, we can ask more complicated questions such as:
Who is a grandparent of jim?
?- Parent(Y,jim) , Parent( X,Y).
The answer will be:
X=bob
Y=pat X
Parent
grandparent
Parent Y
jim

11. Class exercise(2)
Who are Tom’s grandchildren?

12. Questions in prolog. Do ann and pat have a common parents?
?- Parent(X,ann) , Parent(X, pat).
The answer will be : X = bob.

13. Some important points
A prolog program consists of clauses, each clause ends with a full stop.
The arguments of relation can be concrete objects, constant objects (such as bob and pat) or general object (such as X and Y).
Questions in prolog consist of one or more goals.
parent(X,ann),parent(X,pat)
means the conjunctions of the goals:
X is parent of ann , and
X is parent of Pat.

14. Defining relations by rules.
Consider the relation offspring:
offspring(liz, tom)
This relation can be defined by making use of the fact that : the parent is the inverse of offspring.
The alternative way can be based of the following logical statements:
For all X and Y,
Y is an offspring of X if
X is a parent of Y.

15. Defining relations by rules.
In prolog we can define the offspring relation in the following way:
Offspring(Y,X) :- Parent(X, Y)
This clause is called a rule
The differences between rule and fact:
Fact: is a something that always, unconditionally true.
Rule: specify things that are true if some condition is satisfied.

16. Defining relations by rules.
Each rule has two parts:
Condition. (The right hand side)
Conclusion. (The left hand side)
offspring(X,Y):-parent(Y,X).
offspring(X,Y) -> is a conclusion part.
parent(X,Y) -> is a condition part.

17. Defining relations by rules.
How rules are actually used by prolog program?
Consider the following question:
?- offspring(liz, tom)
There are no facts in the program about the offspring, therefore, the only way to find the answer is to apply the rule about offspring relation.

18. Defining relations by rules.
Now we want to apply this rule:
Offspring(Y,X) :- Parent(X, Y)
to find the answer of this question:
?- offspring(liz, tom).
X= tom, Y= liz.
The initial goal is: offspring(liz,tom).
The condition part become: parent(tom,liz).
The initial goal will be replaced with the subgoal parent(tom,liz).
Program can find the answer of this subgoal by using the facts about parent relation.
After finding that the condition part is true, the conclusion part will be also true.

19. Class exercise(2)
Write a rule to describe the grandparent relation?

20. Home exercise(1)
Write a rule to describe the sister relation?

21. Recursive rule
Let’s describe the predecessor relation , this relation will be defined in term of parent relation.
For all X and Z
X is a predecessor of Z if
X is a parent of Z
predecessor(X,Z):- parent(X,Z).

22. Recursive rule x z Y1 y2 Y3 What about indirect predecessor?
parent Y1
What about indirect predecessor?
The rule will be as the following:
predecessor(X,Z):-
parent(X,Y),
parent(Y,Z)
parent(X,Y1),
parent(Y1,Y2).
parent(y2,Z).
…….
parent y2
Predecessor
parent Y3
parent z

23. Recursive rule x z Y1 For all X and Z there is a Y such that
parent Y1
For all X and Z
there is a Y such that
X is the parent of Y , and
Y is a predecessor of Z.
predecessor(X, Z)
parent(X,Y),
predecessor(Y,Z).
parent y2
Predecessor
parent Y3
Predecessor
parent z