A Realization of Built-in Procedures in a Lambda Prolog Implementation
Shyan Perng · 1998
Efficiency and practical considerations necessitate the inclusion of built-ins in a logic programming language. We describe our work in realizing certain built-in procedures in a new implementation of Lambda Prolog, a higher-order logic programming language. This new implementation is based on an abstract machine tailored to Lambda Prolog much in the spirit of Warren''s abstract machine for Prolog. We first describe how the specific task of implementing built-ins fits into this general implementation scheme. We then discuss certain difficulties and challenges involved in implementing the evaluation of built-in functions, the output built-in, and the input built-in. We give some detail to our solutions to these implementation problems.