A Framework for Incorporating Abstraction Mechanisms into the Logic Programming Paradigm.
Abstract
To help make logic programming more suitable for writing large systems, we develop linguistic mechanisms that permit the organization of logic programs around abstractions. In particular, we present the design of Denali, an equational logic programming language that supports predicate and data abstraction. The key issue in introducing predicate abstraction is dealing with the difference between the declarative and procedural interpretations of logic programs. We address this issue by introducing a two-dimensional type system to describe predicate interfaces. The two components are a sort system and a novel multi-valued mode system. Multi-valued modes constrain the ways in which arguments to predicates may be instantiated. A collection of such modes is defined by the programmer for each sort. The key issue in introducing data abstraction is providing ways to obtain equational unification procedures. We develop a pragmatic approach that relies upon the programmer to implement these procedures. We facilitate this by supporting a variety of techniques that simplify the problem. Among these techniques are treating unification on a sort-by-sort basis, layering implementations so as to exploit built-in unification procedures, and using the mode system to constrain the unification problem.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Aug 01, 1987
- Accession Number
- ADA190381
Entities
People
- Joseph L. Zachary
Organizations
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology