nikelin / prolog-engine

A learning project for UIUC CS421: Prolog interpreter implementation in Haskell

Prolog Engine (CS421 - Summer '21)

• Author: Cyril Karpenko [email protected]
• Date: Aug/01/2020

Project structure

The source code of the project stored in the src/ folder and split into three core modules:

• Core.hs: ADTs and core functions on them.
• Parse.hs: Data structures and functions directly related to language parsing activities.
• Unify.hs: Everything related to the unification engine allowing the majority of all operations provided by the language; consists of functions related to the terms unification and those responsible for the evaluation of expressions.

There are also a number of tests defined in the test/ folder

Overview

Prolog Engine - is a minimalistic implementation of a Prolog-like programming language written entirely in Haskell.

Its main features are:

• Support for boolean and exploratory queries against facts and rules defined in the input program declarations.
• Ability to load external definitions stored on the file system using consult/1.
• Rich support for data types and various operations on their values, including:
  • Atoms
  • Variables
  • Terms (when used as a value fact(A))
  • Cons-lists (i.e. [Head|Tail])
  • Enumerated lists (i.e. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5])
  • Boolean
  • Numeric types: Int
  • Strings

The language allows following operations over its data types:

• Unary operations
  • Logical negation: (!) :: Bool -> Bool
  • Arithmetic negation: (-) :: Int -> Int
• Binary operations
  • Logical conjunction: (and) :: Truthy -> Truthy -> Bool
  • Logical disjunction: (or) :: Truthy -> Truthy -> Bool
  • Comparison operations:
    • (>) :: NumVal -> NumVal -> BoolVal
    • (<) :: NumVal -> NumVal -> BoolVal
    • (>=) :: NumVal -> NumVal -> BoolVal
    • (<=) :: NumVal -> NumVal -> BoolVal
    • (==) :: NumVal -> NumVal -> BoolVal
    • (!=) :: NumVal -> NumVal -> BoolVal
  • Arithmetic operations:
    • Addition: (+) :: NumVal -> NumVal -> NumVal
    • Multiplication: (*) :: NumVal -> NumVal -> NumVal
    • Division: (/) :: NumVal -> NumVal -> NumVal

Implementation

Syntax

Below is the rules describing syntax for expression and values supported by the language:

<alpha-num-char> = [a-zA-Z0-9]
<unary-operator> ::= '-' | 'not'

<binary-operator> ::= '+' | '*' | '/' |                          # arith operators 
                   '==' | '!=' | '<=' | '>=' | '<' | '>' |      # comparison operations
                   'and' | 'or'                                 # logical operator

<cons-list> ::= <expression-1> '|' <expression-1>

<enumerated-list> ::= <expression-1> ',' <expression-1> | <expression-1>

<list-elements> ::= <cons-list> | <enumerated-list> | '' 
<list> ::= '[' <listExpElements> ']'

<unary-operation> ::= <unary-operator> <expression-2>

<binary-operation> ::= <expression-2> <binary-operator> <expression-2>

<cut> ::= '!'

<integer> ::= <digit>
<digit> ::= [0-9]<digit> | ""

<boolean> ::= 'True' | 'False'
<atom> ::= <atom-first-char><atom-nonfirst-char>
<atom-first-char> ::= [a-z]
<atom-nonfirst-char> ::= [a-zA-Z0-9]<atom-non-first-char>

<literal> ::= <boolean> | <integer> | <string> | <atom>

<term> ::= <term-identifier> '(' <term-args> ')' 

<term-identifier> ::= <identifier-first-char><identifier-nonfirst-char>
<term-identifier-first-char> ::= [a-zA-Z_]
<term-identifier-nonfirst-char> ::= <alpha-num-char><identifier-nonfirst-char> | '' 

<term-args> ::= <expression-1> ',' <term-args> | <expression-1>

<variable> ::= <identifier-first-char><identifier-nonfirst-char>
<variable-first-char> ::= [A-Z_]
<variable-nonfirst-char> ::= <alpha-num-char><variable-nonfirst-char> | '' 

<expression-1> ::= <binary-operation> | <list> | <cut> | <unary-operation> | <term> | <literal> | <variable>
# An expression which is nested in some other binary or unary expression
<expression-2> ::= <list> | <cut> | '(' <unary-operation> ')' | <term> | '(' <binary-operation> ')' | <literal> | <variable>

Additionally, there are three extra rules which are describing statements. Statements are not expressions themselves but still they are being used by the parser to load the source code of the program that will be used by the user to query against:

<program> ::= <rule-statement><program> | <consult-statement><program>

<newline> ::= '\n'<newline> | '\r'<newline> | '\n\r'<newline> | ''
<rule-statement> ::= <term-identifier> '(' <term-args> ')' <rule-statement-body> '.' <newline>
<rule-statement-body> ::= ':-' <expression> '.' | ''

<consult-statement> ::= 'consult(' <single-quote> <consult-resource-path> <single-quote> ').'
 
<single-quote> ::= '\''

Unification

In order to answer a user's query, the interpreter uses a unification procedure which for a given input is trying to:

• Evaluate all expressions reducing them to literals or references
• Determine whether the given input is satisfiable under the current environment scope (i.e. there is a solution that matches the defined criteria)
• Substitute variables provided as part of the given input with matching values defined in the current environment

Unification starts with an expression and terms environment which contains resolved terms assigned to their normalised identifiers.

If the input expression is a term, then the interpreter will try to find a matching entry among terms provided via the termEnv. If a matching term exists, the unification continues in two stages: arguments and body unification.

There are few aspects of the unification that I wanted to cover in this section. A unification run always produces two components: a boolean result showing whether it is possible to unify the expression, and a also set of solutions produced as a result.

When a single unification results in a one or more multiple recursive calls, solutions from the current scope are being passed down together with a set of variables defined in the current scope's expression.

So, let's say there are statements factD(D, E) and fact(A, D) as defined below:

factD(D, E) :- factC(F), factB(F, D), factF(E, D).
fact(A, D) :- factD(A, D). 

And if we have a unification query against the fact(A, D), then at the point when evaluation gets down to its body expression, the variables scope will have A and D in it, as the body of fact(A, D) has two variable expressions in it.

As for solutions propagation, it happens from top to bottom and from left to right in binary expressions.

Terms unification: Arguments

Performs unification on each pair (inputTermArg, resolvedTermArg) proceeding to the next step if all pairs are unifiable also passing the resulting substitutions to the body unification stage (if rule).

At this point, we can satisfy all queries that are made against facts.

Terms unification: Body

Interpreter progresses to this stage only if the left side of the unification is a ClosureExp or a rule in Prolog terms.

In some way, this procedure can be compared with the function application as the only purpose of the input term is to initialise the resolved closure arguments and provide the output context for its unification results.

A term body is always an expression, and the default behaviour of the bundled parser to treat it as a boolean term producing as a result its conjunction with (LiteralExp (BoolVal True)).

A unification of the term's body considered successful if its evaluated expression is unifiable with (LiteralExp (BoolVal True)).

Other expressions

In all other cases, it will perform evaluation of the input expression unifying the resulting value with True, unless it is an exception in which case returning the error value.

REPL

REPL provides a user with an interactive shell in which they can load a program's source code which is then can be queries against.

In order to use a REPL console, a user need to stack ghci and in GHCi REPL run main which will in its turn start a Prolog REPL session.

Two commands are available:

• :open - prompts user to provide a path on the local filesystem to some Prolog file, which is when processed successfully changes REPL's execution context to the resulting program context allowing for queries execution.
• :quit - exits the current REPL session

Any other input string will be ignored unless there is an active Prolog execution context, in which case the input will be considered as an expression and executed against the current program statements.

Working examples

Example 1: Ancestry example - Siblings

prolog/ancestry_1.prolog:

parent(alex, josh).
parent(alex, bill).
parent(michael, kathy).
parent(mitchell, larry).
parent(bill, jonh).
parent(bill, sarah).
parent(bill, anthony).
gender(alex, male).
gender(josh, male).
gender(bill, male).
gender(anthony, male).
gender(sarah, female).
gender(john, male).
gender(larry, male).
gender(mitchell, male).
female(X) :- gender(X, female).
male(X) :- gender(X, male).
siblings(X, Y) :- parent(S, X), parent(S, Y), X != Y.
brother(X, Y) :- siblings(X, Y), male(Y).
sister(X, Y) :- siblings(X, Y), sister(Y).
has_sister(X) :- siblings(X, Y), female(Y).

REPL commands to execute the example scenario:

repl >> :open
Enter path to the file: 
repl *prolog/ancestry01.prolog>>  Ok.
repl *prolog/ancestry01.prolog> siblings(josh, Y)
? - yes

Y=bill

[Done]
repl *prolog/ancestry01.prolog>> male(X).
? - yes

X=alex
X=josh
X=bill
X=anthony
X=john
X=larry
X=mitchell

[Done]
repl *prolog/ancestry01.prolog>> siblings(X, Y)
Variables scope: fromList ["X","Y"] for query siblings(${X},${Y},)
? - yes

X=josh  Y=bill
X=bill  Y=josh
X=jonh  Y=sarah
X=jonh  Y=anthony
X=sarah  Y=jonh
X=sarah  Y=anthony
X=anthony  Y=jonh
X=anthony  Y=sarah

[Done]

Tests

Current tests suite conducts various checks and attempts at verifying correctness of almost all constructs present in language.

To run the tests, simply execute stack test.

Known Issues / Scope for Improvement / Not implemented

• There seems to be an issue in the alpha-conversion algorithm for closures which is preventing correct unification in terms with dependent variable pairs which are named differently to the term represented by closure. I.e.:

    siblings(X, S) :- 
       parent(Y, X),
       parent(Y, S),
       S != X.
    
    ?- siblings(X, P)     # doesn't work correctly
    ?- siblings(X, S)     # works correctly
  

• No support for disjoint control structure (;/2)
• There is no syntactic shape enforcement for const-lists:
  • Valid: [H|T]
  • Valid: [X|[Y|T]]
  • Also valid, unfortunately: [H|(term name)]
• There could be more control provided to the user when it comes to type conversion especially during arithmetic operations.
• It is impossible under the current implementation to have any persistent state between runs of unify / solve.
• If I had more time, I would try to merge definitions of unify and eval under a single unify construct.