Department of Mathematics & Computer Science

MC214 Logic Programming

Explanation of Pre-requisites

The Prolog language is based on the predicate calculus so the knowledge of logic from MC111 is essential. Some prior experience in computer programming is also important so MC103 is essential and MC104 is recommended.

Course Description

Many of the programming tasks which arise in Artificial Intelligence can be formulated as search problems, e.g. find a series of moves which will guide the robot out of the maze, find a medical diagnosis which is consistent with the patient's symptoms, find a combination of components which fits the customer's requirements for a computer system, and so on. The predicate calculus introduced in MC111 provides a convenient language to describe such problems; logic programming provides a means of finding the solution by the application of rules. Prolog is the prime example of a logic programming language and has become a standard tool in Artificial Intelligence programming.

Aims

The course is intended to give the student an understanding of the principles of logic programming, the basic skills of programming in Prolog and an appreciation of how to apply these skills in practice to standard problems in AI.

Objectives

• To understand how Prolog relates to the predicate calculus and appreciate the declarative meaning of a program;

• to be able to write programs in Prolog using a mixture of recursion, arithmetic, lists/trees, negation, IO and other non-logical features such as assert and retract;

• to understand the execution mechanism of Prolog in terms of unification, resolution and SLD-trees;

• to be able to improve the efficiency of a Prolog program using the cut operator.

Transferable Skills

• A secure understanding of the principles and techniques of logic programming and how these can be applied in practice, for example in AI;

• experience in problem solving, in particular, in search problems;

• a greater appreciation of the role of logic in Computer Science and its applications.

Syllabus

Fundamentals of Prolog: facts and rules, recursion, backtracking, simple examples; execution mechanism: unification, resolution, SLD-trees and search strategies; list processing in Prolog; cut operator and efficiency issues; worked examples; negation as finite failure; arithmetic; system predicates for IO; assert and retract; debugging programs by tracing.

Reading list

Recommended:

I. Bratko, Prolog, Programming for Artificial Intelligence, 2nd edition, Addison-Wesley, 1986.

Background:

L. Sterling and E. Shapiro, The Art of Prolog, 2nd edition., MIT Press, 1994.

Details of Assessment

The written Midsummer examination has three questions and candidates can obtain full marks for good answers to two questions.

Author: S. J. Ambler, tel: +44 (0)116 252 3884
Last updated: 2001-09-20
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