In this part of this practical tutorial, we are going to do some coding involving facts, rules, recursion, and lists.
Example 1: Obtain the head of the list, obtain the tail of the list.
/* Get the head of the list */
get_head(Head, [Head|_]).
/* Get the tail of the list */
get_tail(Tail, [_|Tail]).
?- get_head(Head_is, [a,b,c,d]).
Head_is = a.
?- get_tail(Tail_is, [a,b,c,d]).
Tail_is = [b, c, d].
Example 2: Find out if an element is a member of a list.
/* Base case - We find the element inside the list */
/* The element is found if the head of the list can be unified with the element we are searching */
member(Element, [Element|_]).
/* Recursive function that call member with the tail without taking care of the head of the list */
/* The idea is that the base case will be called and check if the element is found */
member(Element, [_|Tail]) :-
member(Element, Tail).
?- member(a, [a,1,3,b,c]).
true .
/* Using OR ';', we ask Prolog to search for another element in the list */
?- member(a, [a,1,a,b,c]).
true ;
true ;
false.
/* Element is not found in the list */
?- member(a, [c,1,3,b,c]).
false.
Example 3: Find an specific element member inside a list in a determined position.
/* Base case */ /* The element was found in the list was found, set Position to 1 to stop recursion */ get_member_at(1, [Head|_], Head). /* Recursive case */ /* Go thought the list until position is less than 1 indicating that member was found */ get_member_at(Position, [_|Tail], Element):- Position > 1, Temp_Position is Position - 1, get_member_at(Temp_Position, Tail, Element). /* Get the member at position 3 of the list */ ?- get_member_at(3, [1,3,5,7], Lst). Lst = 5. /* This fails when trying to get an element out or bounds of the list */ ?- get_member_at(5, [1,3,5,7], Lst). false. /* BE CAREFUL, Sometimes prolog can behave weird base on how you use your functors eg.*/ /* The follow is when prolog create dynamic variables because doesn't now the limit of the list */ ?- get_member_at(5, Lst, Lst). Lst = [_G455, _G458, _G461, _G464, **|_G468]. /* In this case, not only produce dynamic variables to be instanciated, but also add the list [1,a,b] as the fifth head element of the list */ ?- get_member_at(5, Lst, [1,a,b]). Lst = [_G473, _G476, _G479, _G482, [1, a, b]|_G486] ;
Example 4: Lets obtain the numbers of elements that belong to a simple list.
/* Base case - When the list is empty, unify with zero */
number_of_elements([], 0).
/* Recursive case */
number_of_elements([_|Tail], Number_counted) :-
number_of_elements(Tail, counter),
Number_counted is counter + 1.
In the recursive case, Prolog will call number_of_elements passing the tail of the list until the list is empty. Then, for every time number_of_elements was call it would return the counter + 1 to the previous call. At the end, we will obtain the total number of elements in the list.
?- number_of_elements([a,1,b,2,^, &], Counted).
Counted = 6.
/* In this case the sublist [1,2,3] inside the list is considerate an element as a whole */
?- number_of_elements([a,b,c,[1,2,3]], Counted).
Counted = 4.
?- number_of_elements([[a,b,c,1,2,3]], Counted).
Counted = 1.
If inside the code we would had the unification symbol instead of the word ‘is’, we would have a different result:
/* Base case - When the list is empty, unify with zero */
number_of_elements([], 0).
/* Recursive case */
number_of_elements([_|Tail], Number_counted) :-
number_of_elements(Tail, counter),
Number_counted is counter + 1.
?- number_of_elements([a,1,b,2,^, &], Counted).
Counted = 0+1+1+1+1+1+1.
Example 5: Lets sort a list of elements
/* Base case - Empty list */
sort_list([]).
/* Base case - [_] indicate we don't case about the element, there is only one, the list is sorted */
sort_list([_]).
/* Recursion case */
sort_list([First_element, Second_element|Tail]):-
First_element =< Second_element,
sorted([Second_element|Tail]).
?- is_list_sorted([1,2,3,4]).
true .
?- is_list_sorted([1,2,3,4]).
true ;
false.
?- is_list_sorted([1,3,3,4]).
true.
?- is_list_sorted([1,3,5,4]).
false.
This topic will continue in the next posting.
