Backup of Guards(No. 8) - LMNtal PukiWiki

Guards

Rules with a Guard

The syntax of a rule with a guard is:

Head :- Guard | Body

where Guard is a multiset of type constraints of the form: p($p1, ..., $pn).

Type constraints put constraints on the shapes of processes (or the names of unary atoms) with which the process contexts specified in its arguments can match. The type constraint name p is drawn from a built-in set and specifies which kind of constraints is imposed.

A constraint of the form uniq($p1, ..., $pn) is also allowed. This is a control structure rather than a type constraint and used to avoid infinite rule application (see below).

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Examples

Here is an example rule with guard:

waitint($p) :- int($p) | ok.

This rule can be thought of as an abbreviation of the following infinite number of rules:

waitint(0) :- ok.
waitint(1) :- ok.
waitint(-1):- ok.
waitint(2) :- ok.
  ...

The following list contains examples of some type constraints that can be written in Guard:

int($p) --- specifies that $p must be an integer atom.
4($p) --- specifies that $p must be a unary integer atom of value 4 (i.e., 4(X)).
$p < $q --- specifies that $p and $q are integer atoms such that the value of $p is less than that of $q.
$r = $p +. $q --- specifies that $p, $q, and $r are floating point number atoms such that the sum of the values of $p and $q is equal to the value of $r.

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Notes

Each type constraint name (such as int or <) has its own mode of usage that specifies which of its arguments are input arguments. The effect of the constraint specified by a type constraint is enabled only after the shapes (or values) of its input arguments are all determined. For example, $r = $p + $q proceeds only when $p and $q are determined.

The same abbreviation scheme as defined for atoms applies to type constraints when a process context name $pk occurs exactly twice in the rule. For example, p($n) :- $n>$z, 0($z) | ok can be abbreviated to p($n) :- $n>0 | ok.

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Typed Process Contexts

A process context name $p constrained in Guard is said to be typed in that rule. As a syntactic sugar, typed process context names can be written as link names. For inscance, the above example can be written as:

waitint(X) :- int(X) | ok.

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Avoiding Infinite Rule Application

A constraint of the form uniq($p1, ..., $pn) succeeds if each $pk is a ground structure (connected graph with exactly one free link; see below) and the rule has not been applied to the tuple $p1, ..., $pn before.

As a special case of n=0, uniq succeeds if the rule in question has not been used before. The uniq() test is a general tool for avoiding infinite application of rules whose right-hand side is a super(multi)set of the left-hand side.

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Guard Library

Currently, the following type constraints can be written in the guard. The + specifies an input argument.

'='(+U1,-U2)               - make sure that U1 and U2 are (connected to)
                             unary atoms with the same name
'='(-U1,+U2)               - same as above
'=='(+U1,+U2)              - check if U1 and U2 are (connected to) unary
                             atoms with the same name
unary(+U)                  - check if U is (connected to) a unary atom
ground(+G)                 - check if G is (connected to) a connected graph
                             with exactly one free link (which is G)
int(+I)                    - check if I is (connected to) an integer
float(+F)                  - check if F is (connected to) a float
int(+Float,-Int)           - cast
float(+Int,-Float)         - cast
345(-Int)                  - defined for every integer (not only with 345)
'-3.14'(-Float)            - defined for every float
'<'(+Int,+Int)             - integer comparison; also: > =< >= =:= =\=
'+'(+Int,+Int,-Int)        - integer operation;  also: - * / mod
'<.'(+Float,+Float)        - float comparison;   also: >. =<. >=. =:=. =\=.
'+.'(+Float,+Float,-Float) - float operation;    also: -. *. /.
uniq(+G1,...,+Gn)          - uniqueness constraint; checks if the rule has
                             not been applied to the tuple G1,...,Gn (n>=0)