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Compositional operational semantics for Prolog programs

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Abstract

To relate operational semantics of logic programs to its declarative semantics, we have to rely on SLD-trees. But this form of operational semantics does not make it easy to relate execution behaviour to program structure. The reason is that the traversal of SLD-trees decomposes in a way that is different from the decomposition (which is by disjunction and conjunction) of programs.

We propose SLD-contours, a variant of SLD-trees, that are, like programs, built up out of simpler components by means of disjunction and conjunction. The traversal of SLD-trees carries over to the traversal of SLD-contours in such a way that the trace events of the Box Model (Try, Succeed, Retry, Fail) are reproduced in the same way as during the execution of the program. ThusSLD-contours relate the trace more closely to the program than SLD-trees. SLD-contours specify the trace more completely than the Box Model does.

However, SLD-contours have the disadvantage that similar constructs are repeated. We introduce a way of collapsing repeated occurrences into a single one. The result is an elaboration of the existing Box Model. Hence we call them SLD-boxes. In this way, SLD-boxes connect the semantics of Prolog programs to the Box Model, the most widely used aid in tracing Prolog programs.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, University of Victoria, P. O. Box 3055, V8W 3P6, Victoria, BC, Canada

    M. H. M. Cheng, R. N. Horspool, M. R. Levy & M. H. van Emden

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  1. M. H. M. Cheng
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  2. R. N. Horspool
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  3. M. R. Levy
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  4. M. H. van Emden
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Cheng, M.H.M., Horspool, R.N., Levy, M.R. et al. Compositional operational semantics for Prolog programs. New Gener Comput 10, 315–328 (1992). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03037941

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03037941

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