Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

A partial evaluation system for Prolog: some practical considerations

  • Published:
New Generation Computing Aims and scope Submit manuscript

    We’re sorry, something doesn't seem to be working properly.

    Please try refreshing the page. If that doesn't work, please contact support so we can address the problem.

Abstract

An introduction to the basic concepts of partial evaluation is followed by a short description of its use as a program transformation tool.

A number of difficulties in building a partial evaluation tool, related to particular features of the language Prolog, are discussed.

The impact of partial evaluation on the optimisations done by current Prolog systems is analysed and some recommendations for further improvements are made.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Komorowski, H. J., “A specification of an abstract prolog machine and its application to partial evaluation,”Linkoping studies in science and technology dissertations, nr. 69, 1981.

  2. Venken, R., “A Prolog meta-interpreter for partial evaluation and its application to source-to-source transformation and query optimisation,”Proceedings of ECAI ’84, Pisa, North-Holland, 1984.

  3. BIM_Prolog Manual, BIM R & D, Everberg, 1987.

  4. Mulkers, A., “Partial Evaluation of Prolog programs as a tool for program transformation, “DPWB Report, K. U. Leuven, 1986.

  5. O’Keefe, R. A., “On the treatment of cuts in Prolog source-level tools,”Proc. Symp. on Logic Programming, Boston, IEEE, 1985.

  6. Chakravarthy, U. S., Minker, J. and Tran, D., “Interfacing predicate logic languages and relational databases,”Proc. of the 1st Int. Logic Progr. Conf., Marseille, 1982.

  7. Venken, R., “Query Optimisation and Partial Evaluation,”Proc. of the Workshop on Coupling Prolog and Databases, Venice, 1986.

  8. Henschen, L. J. and Naqvi, S. A., “On compiling queries in recursive first-order databases,”Journal of the ACM,Vol. 31,No. 1, 1984.

  9. Gallagher, J., “Transforming logic programs by specialising interpreters,”Proc. ECAI ’86, Brighton, 1986.

  10. Venken, R., Bruynooghe, M., Krekels, B. and Dekeyser, L., “The centralised scheduler vs. the distributed specialists: towards a flexible controller in Prolog for expert systems,”Proc. Wissensbasierte Systeme, GI-Kongress, Munich, 1985.

  11. Tick, Warren, “Towards a pipelined Prolog,”Proc. Int. Conf. Log. Prog., Atlantic City, 1984.

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. BIM, Research and Development, Kwikstraat 4, 3078, Everberg, Belgium

    Raf Venken

  2. Department of Computer Science, Catholic University Leuven, Celestijnenlaan 200A, 3030, Leuven, Belgium

    Bart Demoen

Authors
  1. Raf Venken
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Bart Demoen
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

About this article

Cite this article

Venken, R., Demoen, B. A partial evaluation system for Prolog: some practical considerations. New Gener Comput 6, 279–290 (1988). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03037142

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03037142

Keywords

Search

Navigation