LC++ tutorial

This tutorial describes what you need to know to use LC++.

Declaring functors and logic variables

To declare a functor, use one of the FUNn macros, where n is the arity of the functor. The macro arguments should be the functor name followed by the argument types of the functor. For example: 

   FUN2(parent,string,string)       // parent() takes 2 strings
   FUN3(ancestor,string,string,int) // ancestor() takes 2 strings and an int
By convention, we name functors with an initial lowercase letter.

To declare a logic variable, use the DECLARE macro. Its arguments are the logic variable name, its type, and an integer unique to that variable. For example: 

   DECLARE( X, int, 1 );        // X is a LogicVar<int>
   DECLARE( Str, string, 2 );   // Str is a LogicVar<string>
By convention, we name logic variables with an initial capital letter.

Syntax

The syntax of LC++ is designed to be similar to Prolog. 

   -=                      implication
   ==                      unification
   &&                      conjunction
   ||                      disjunction
   not_provable()          not provable
   LV.is(fun,args)         computation
We'll see some examples of these below.

Adding facts to the database

To add facts to the repository of rules, use lassert(). For example: 
   lassert( parent( homer, bart ) );
   lassert( ancestor( Par, Kid, 1 ) -= parent( Par, Kid ) );

Running queries

To run a query, use the iquery() or lquery() function. iquery prints the results, and lquery returns them as a lazy list: 

   iquery( parent( Par, Kid ) );   // prints all answers
   
   typedef QRT::IE IE;
   List l = lquery( parent( homer, Kid ) );
   while( !null(l) ) {
      IE env = head(l);
      // env->show();   // one way to print entire environment
      std::cout << "Kid is " << *env->at(Kid) << std::endl;
      l = tail(l);
   }
lquery() deserves more explanation. It returns a list of IRefs (reference-counted pointers) to Environment objects. This type is named by the QRT type computer: 
   QRT<LV1_TYPE, ... LVn_TYPE>::IE
is the type of result of a query involving the logic variables LV1 thru LVn. We use the FC++ list functions to traverse the list. The environment object understands the messages show() (which prints the entire environment contents) and at(SomeLV) (which returns info about that logic variable's binding).

See examples like family.cc for more info. 








Last updated on May 30, 2003 by 
Brian McNamara