JPC: A Library for Modularising Inter-Language Conversion Concerns between Java and Prolog
Sergio Castro, Kim Mens, Paulo Moura · 2013
The number of approaches existing to enable a smooth interaction between Java and Prolog programs testifies the growing interest in solutions that take advantage of the strengths of both languages. Most of these approaches provide limited support to allow programmers to customise how a Prolog artefact should be reified in the Java world, or how to reason about Java objects on the Prolog side. The burden of creating a convenient mapping between inter-language artefacts is left, however, to the user of the library. This is an error-prone task since the appropriate mapping often depends on the particular context of usage. Although some libraries alleviate this problem by providing higher-level abstractions to deal with the complexity of converting programming artefacts between the two languages, these libraries themselves are dicult to implement and evolve. This is caused by the lack of appropriate underlying building blocks for modularising and managing Java-Prolog conversion constructs. We therefore introduce a library intending to serve as a portable development tool both for programmers willing to modularise context-dependent conversion constructs in their Java-Prolog systems, and for architects implementing frameworks providing higherlevel abstractions for better interoperability between these two languages.