ediprolog — Emacs does Interactive Prolog



ediprolog lets you interact with Prolog in all Emacs buffers. You can consult Prolog programs and evaluate embedded queries.

The latest version of ediprolog is 2.3-PRE1.

Download: ediprolog.el

New:
  • correctly handle consult output of recent Scryer Prolog versions
  • improved compatibility with older Emacs versions


Video: Ediprolog video


For more information about Prolog development with Emacs, see PceProlog. 		Factorial using CLP(FD)


Installation

With Emacs≥24.1, the simplest way to install ediprolog is to use Emacs's built-in package manager via: 
M-x package-install RET ediprolog RET
Alternatively, copy ediprolog.el to your load-path and add the following form to your .emacs, then evaluate the form or restart Emacs: 
(require 'ediprolog)
After you have installed ediprolog, you can customize it with: 
M-x customize-group RET ediprolog RET
The two most important configuration options are:

Usage

The central function is ediprolog-dwim (Do What I Mean). I recommend to bind it to a suitable key sequence. For example, you can bind it to the function key F10 with: 
(global-set-key [f10] 'ediprolog-dwim)
If F10 is not free on your platform, bind ediprolog-dwim to any other key sequence. For example, to bind it to C-c C-e, use: 
(global-set-key "\C-c\C-e" 'ediprolog-dwim)
In the following, replace F10 with your custom binding.

Depending on the content at point, ediprolog-dwim does the "appropriate" thing: If point is on a query, it sends the query to a Prolog process, and you interact with the process in the current buffer as on a terminal. Queries in Prolog source files start with ?- or :-, possibly preceded by % and whitespace.

An example of a query is: 
%?- member(X, "abc").
If you press F10 when point is on that query, you get: 
%?- member(X, "abc").
%@    X = a
%@ ;  X = b
%@ ;  X = c
%@ ;  false.

If you press F10 when point is not on a query, the buffer content is consulted in the Prolog process, and point is moved to the first error (if any). You do not need to save the file beforehand, since the buffer content (not the file) is consulted.

In transient mark mode, if the region is active, only the text in the region is consulted.

When waiting for output of the Prolog process, you can press C-g to unblock Emacs and continue with other work. To resume interaction with the Prolog process, use M-x ediprolog-toplevel RET.

For convenience, the most recent interactions with the Prolog process are logged in the buffer *ediprolog-history*.

Use M-x ediprolog-localize RET to make any Prolog process started in the current buffer buffer-local. This way, you can run distinct processes simultaneously. Revert with M-x ediprolog-unlocalize RET.



ediprolog-dwim with prefix arguments has special meanings:

C-0 F10 kill Prolog process
C-1 F10 always consult buffer (even if point is on a query)
C-2 F10 always consult buffer, using a new process
C-7 F10 equivalent to ediprolog-toplevel
C-u F10 first load buffer into existing process and then, if on a query, evaluate it
C-u C-u F10   like C-u F10, with a new process


Multi-line queries

ediprolog also supports multi-line queries. For this to work, put the whole query in a comment block that spans multiple lines.

For example: 
/*
  ?- Vs = [X,Y,Z],
     Vs ins 1..2,
     all_distinct(Vs).
  %@ false.
*/
Using PceProlog, you can quickly create such comment blocks with C-c q.

To evaluate a multi-line query, invoke ediprolog-dwim on the first line of the query, which starts with ?-.


More about Prolog: The Power of Prolog

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