Trivial Prolog in Java

01: package ca.draisey.free.tprolog;
02: 
03: 
04: 
05: 
06: 
07: // recursive term elements give predicates, formal functions, formal constants and formal variables
08: // pair, atom and variable terms are sufficient to generate tham all
09: // the binding of variable terms is sufficient to create constraint space of predicate logic
10: // unification is just a recursive descent of matching terms
11: //      -- following bound variables to satisfy given constraints
12: //      -- binding unbound variables as necessary to generate new contraints
13: //      -- failing at mismatched terms
14: //      -- succeeding otherwise with newfound constraints added to environment
15: // this unification algorithm can create circular references -- equivalent to circular reasoning
16: //      in logic -- so called occurance loops -- such is prolog -- these circular references
17: //      never occur in normal prolog programming
18: abstract class Term extends Clause {
19:         // part of the instantiation process for stripping unwanted qualifiers
20:         final Term dequantifyTerm() { return this; }
21: 
22:         // glue between clauses and terms
23:         final void queryClause( final Term goal, final Variables these, final Variables goals, final Successor success )
24:         {
25:                 unifythrough( goal, these, goals, success );
26:         }
27: 
28:         // unifythrough -- by juggling terms unifythrough does dynamic dispatch on its Term argument --
29:         //      Java can only dispatch dynamically on "this" -- we do so through "unifythrough"
30:         //      and on a per class basis swap "this" and "that" and then dispatch to the
31:         //      specialized "unifytoPair", "unifytoAtom", and "unifytoUnboundVariable" -- note
32:         //      that for bound variables the corresponding bound term is substituted immediately
33:         protected abstract void unifythrough( final Term that, final Variables these, final Variables those, final Successor success );
34: 
35:         // the meat of any Term
36:         // unifytoPair and unifytoAtom fail by default -- overriden as necessary --
37:         protected void unifytoPair( final PairTerm that, final Variables these, final Variables those, final Successor success ) {};
38:         protected void unifytoCons( final ConsTerm that, final Variables these, final Variables those, final Successor success ) {};
39:         protected void unifytoAtom( final AtomTerm that, final Variables these, final Variables those, final Successor success ) {};
40:         // all terms inherit the ability to bind an unbound variable from Term -- always succeeds --
41:         protected void unifytoUnboundVariable( final VariTerm that, final Variables these, final Variables those, final Successor success )
42:         {
43:                 that.bindto( this, those, these, success );
44:         }
45: }
46: 
47: // fin