User Manual 3.5 December 1995

User Manual ECLiPSe

Authors

The following people have contributed to this manual (in alphabetical order):

Abderrahamane Aggoun (ECRC)
David Chan (ECRC)
Pierre Dufresne (ECRC)
Eamon Falvey (ICL-ITC)
Hugh Grant (ICL-ITC)
Alexander Herold (ECRC)
Geoffrey Macartney (ECRC)
Micha Meier (ECRC)
David Miller (ICL-ITC)
Shyam Mudambi (ECRC)
Bruno Perez (ECRC)
Emmanuel van Rossum (ECRC)
Joachim Schimpf (ECRC)
Periklis Andreas Tsahageas (ECRC)
Dominique Henry de Villeneuve (ECRC)

Trademarks

UNIX is a trademark of AT&T Bell Laboratories.

Quintus and Quintus Prolog are trademarks of Quintus Computer Systems, Incorporated.

VAX is a trademark of Digital Equipment Corporation

SUN-3 and SUN-4 are trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc.

© International Computers Limited and ECRC GmbH 1992

• Contents
• Introduction
  • What is ECLiPSe ?
  • Overview
  • ECLiPSe Features
    • Metaterms
    • Incremental Compiler
    • Source Variable Names
    • Flexibility
    • User Interface
    • Full Word Size
    • Few Limits
    • Occur Check and Complete Search Rule
    • Strings
    • Arrays and Global Variables
    • Indexed Database
    • Modules
    • Event Handling
    • Coroutining
    • Debugger
    • Stream I/O
    • Macros
    • Blocks
    • External Predicates
    • Compatibility
    • Autoloading Libraries
    • Profiling Tools
    • Portability
    • On-line Documentation
  • Extensions
  • Further Informations
  • Reporting Problems
• Terminology
• Getting started with ECLiPSe
  • Entering the ECLiPSe System
    • Starting ECLiPSe in teletype mode
  • ECLiPSe Command Line Options
  • The .eclipserc file
  • Interaction with the Toplevel Loop
    • Entering Goals
    • Exiting from the Toplevel
    • Entering Programs from the Terminal
    • Querying Programs
    • Syntax errors
    • Interrupting the execution
    • History Mechanism
    • Getting Help
    • Global Flags and Settings
  • More about compilation
    • Optimised Compilation
    • Compiling from a File
    • File Queries and Directives
    • Compiling Procedures as Dynamic or Static
    • Altering Programs
  • Using Libraries
  • Redefining Built In Predicates
• Porting Applications to ECLiPSe
  • Using the compatibility packages
    • Compiler versus Interpreter
    • Name clashes with global ECLiPSe builtins
  • Porting Programs to plain ECLiPSe
  • Exploiting ECLiPSe Features
• The Compiler
  • Program Source
  • Procedure Types
  • Compiler Modes
  • Compiler Input
  • Libraries
  • Module Compilation
  • Mode Declarations
  • Compiler Pragmas
  • Writing Efficient Code
  • Special Primitives
    • Soft Cut
    • Matching Clauses
    • Abstract Code Listing
• Parallel Execution
  • Using the Parallel System
  • Parallel Programming Constructs
    • Parallel Annotation
    • Built-In
    • Utility Libraries
  • Controlling and Analysing the Execution
    • Which worker executes this code?
    • Measuring Runtimes
    • Amount of Parallelism
    • Adding and Removing Workers
  • Parallelism and Side Effects
  • Parallel Cuts
  • Restrictions
  • Troubleshooting
    • No Space
    • Process structure
    • Crash recovery
• Module System
  • Terminology
  • Basic Properties
  • Modules and the Top Level Loop
  • Modules and Source Files
    • The Module Interface
  • Creating and Erasing Modules at Runtime
  • Visibility of Predicates
    • Access rule for predicates as goal name
    • Access rules for predicates as arguments of built-ins
    • Defining and modifying the visibility
    • Tools
    • System Tools
  • Libraries
  • Other Modular Items
  • Privacy
  • Dynamic Procedures
  • Event handlers
  • Debugger
• Arithmetic
  • Built-Ins to Evaluate Arithmetic Expressions
  • Numeric Types and Type Conversions
    • Integers
    • Rationals
    • Floating Point Numbers
    • Type Conversions
  • Arithmetic Functions
    • Predefined Arithmetic Functions
    • Evaluation Mechanism
    • User Defined Arithmetic Functions
    • Runtime Expressions
  • Low Level Arithmetic Builtins
  • The Multi-Directional Predicates plus/3 and times/3
  • Arithmetic and Coroutining
• Arrays and Global Variables
  • Introduction
  • Global Variables
  • Arrays
  • Global References
  • Visibility
• Input and Output
  • Streams in ECLiPSe
  • System Streams
  • Opening New Streams
  • Communication with Streams
    • Character I/O
    • Token I/O
    • Term I/O
  • String Streams
  • Modifying the Output
    • The printf/2, 3 Predicate
    • The output_mode flag
    • The syntax_option flag
    • The print/1, 2 Predicate
• ECLiPSe Macros
  • Introduction
  • Using the macros
  • Definite Clause Grammars --- DCGs
    • Simple DCG example
    • Mapping to Prolog Clauses
    • Parsing other Data Structures
• Exceptions
  • Errors
    • Error Handlers
    • Arguments of Error Handlers
    • User Defined Errors
      • Note:
    • Using Tools in Error Handlers
  • Interrupts
  • The block/3 Predicate
• The String Data Type
  • Introduction
  • Choosing The Appropriate Data Type
    • Strings vs. Character Lists
    • Strings vs. Atoms
    • Conclusion
  • Builtin Support for Strings
  • Entering Strings
• Memory Organisation And Garbage Collection
  • Introduction
    • The Code Heap
    • The General Heap
    • The Local Stack
    • The Control Stack
    • The Global Stack
    • The Trail Stack
  • Garbage collection
• Saving States
  • Concepts
  • Saved Program States
    • Creating Saved States With The -s Option
  • Saved Execution States
  • Invoking Saved States Directly
  • Limitations
• Operating System Interface
  • Introduction
  • Environment Access
    • Command Line Arguments
    • Environment Variables
    • Exiting ECLiPSe
    • Time and Date
    • Host Computer
    • Calling C Functions
  • File System
    • Current Directory
    • Looking at Directories
    • Checking Files
    • Renaming and Removing Files
    • Filenames
  • Creating Communicating Processes
    • Process creation
    • Process control
    • Interprocess Signals
    • Internal Signals
• Interprocess Communication
  • Socket Domains
  • Stream Connection on a Single Machine
  • Datagram Connection on a Single Machine
  • Stream Connection Between Two Machines
  • Datagram Connection with Multiple Machines
• External Language Interface
  • External Procedures
  • Mapping between C and Prolog
    • Data Structures
    • Argument Mapping
  • Adding Externals
    • User Initialisation
  • Interface to Externals
    • Argument Passing
    • Exit
    • Type Testing
    • Unification and Binding
    • Creating Compound Terms
    • Creating and Decomposing Lists
    • Strings
    • I/O in External Predicates
    • Arrays
    • Memory Management
    • Calling Prolog from C
  • Nondeterministic Externals
  • Suspending with External Predicates
• Profiling Prolog Execution
  • Introduction
  • Using the Profiling Tool
  • Using the Statistics Facility
    • Exhaustive Collection
    • Selective Collection
    • Obtaining mode information
• The Built-in Predicates of ECLiPSe
  • Logic and Control Built-ins
  • Database Built-ins
  • Internal Indexed Database Built-ins
  • Type Testing Built-ins
  • Term Comparison Built-ins
  • Term Manipulation Built-ins
  • All Solutions Built-ins
  • Arithmetic Built-ins
  • Strings and Atoms Built-ins
  • Module handling Built-ins
  • Stream I/O Built-ins
  • Character I/O Built-ins
  • Term I/O Built-ins
  • Event Handling Built-ins
  • Debugging Built-ins
  • Arrays and Global Variable Built-ins
  • Coroutining Built-ins
  • External Interface Built-ins
  • Prolog Environment Built-ins
  • Compiler Directives
  • Operating System Built-Ins
  • Lists Library Predicates
  • Sorts Library predicates Built-ins
  • String Library Predicates
• Libraries
  • Advanced Programming Examples
    • answer
    • custom
    • module_autoload
    • pretty_print
    • quintus_util
  • Apply Macros
  • CIO
  • Crossreference Checking
    • Checking of Loaded Predicates
    • Checking Files
  • Bounded Depth-First Search
    • Depth-First Iterative Deepening
    • Depth-First Search with Limited Depth
  • Foreign C Interface
  • Graphic Libraries
    • Meter
    • Perfmeter
  • Conditional Compilation
  • C-Prolog Compatibility Package
    • Using the C-Prolog compatibility package
    • C-Prolog compatibility predicates
    • C-Prolog Predicates not available in ECLiPSe
    • Differences Between C-Prolog and ECLiPSe
    • Syntax differences
  • I/O Redirection
  • The Mode Analyser
  • Parallel Utilities
  • Ptags
  • Quintus Prolog Compatibility Package
    • Using the Quintus Prolog compatibility package
    • The Quintus compatibility predicates
    • Syntax differences
  • Scattered
  • SICStus Prolog Compatibility Package
    • Using the SICStus Prolog compatibility package
    • The SICStus compatibility predicates
    • Syntax differences
  • Structures with Field Names
  • Utility Libraries
    • Util
    • Define
    • Numbervars
    • Apply
    • Lips
    • Anti_unify
    • Spell
    • Rationals
• Operators
• Protected Procedures
• Global Flags
• Current Known Restrictions and Bugs
• Index
• References
• About this document ...