4 The Prolog Language

This chapter describes the syntax and semantics of the Prolog language, and introduces the central built-in predicates and other important language constructs. In many cases, an entry in a list of built-in predicates, will be annotated with keywords. These annotations are defined in mpg-ref-cat.

• ref-syn: Syntax
• ref-sem: Semantics
• ref-lod: Loading Programs
• ref-sls: Saving and Loading the Prolog Database
• ref-fdi: Files and Directories
• ref-iou: Input and Output
• ref-ari: Arithmetic
• ref-lte: Looking at Terms
• ref-lps: Looking at the Program State
• ref-mgc: Memory Use and Garbage Collection
• ref-mod: Modules
• ref-mdb: Modification of the Database
• ref-all: Sets and Bags: Collecting Solutions to a Goal
• ref-gru: Grammar Rules
• ref-ere: Errors and Exceptions
• ref-msg: Messages and Queries
• ref-oth: Other Topics