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From: tswift@cs.sunysb.edu (Terrance Swift)
Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.announce,comp.os.386bsd.apps
Subject: XSB for 386bsd
Followup-To: comp.os.386bsd.apps
Date: 2 Aug 1993 12:53:43 -0700
Organization: State University of New York, Stony Brook
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The XSB Logic Programming System for 386BSD.
We are happy to announce version 1.2 of XSB , a Prolog-based Logic
Programming System. XSB is a descendant of SB-Prolog. The new version
offers improved performance, reliability and portability. In particular,
speed-ups of 20% can be observed for many Prolog programs, and the system
now runs on a wide variety of platforms.
Besides providing all the functionalities of a Prolog system, XSB
includes an optimizing compiler, a module system, and dynamic loading.
Furthermore, it extends Prolog by including implementations of OLDT
(tabling) and HiLog terms.
The XSB distribution includes all source code and a user's manual.
The system can be compiled using the GNU C compiler, and besides 386BSD
it has currently been tested on
-- SUN-3 and SUN-4 workstations running SunOS and Solaris
-- NeXT machines
-- 386 and 486 PCs under Linux and 386 BSD
-- Silicon Graphics machines running IRIX
-- Hewlett-Packard 300/400 series running HP-UX.
however, porting XSB to any 32-bit machine running Unix, should be
straightforward.
In the following we briefly describe new features of XSB (that are not
provided by other Prolog systems), and finally we give instructions on
how to ftp XSB.
OLDT resolution is useful for recursive query computation, allowing
programs to terminate correctly in many cases where Prolog does not.
Users interested in Parsing, Program Analysis, and memory-resident
Deductive Database applications may benefit from XSB.
XSB's OLDT implementation:
-- Is incorporated at the emulator level for maximal efficiency.
The speed improvement over meta-interpreters written by
the XSB group is 2-3 orders of magnitude, with considerable
improvements in space as well.
-- Evaluates programs with (left-to-right modularly) stratified
negation and aggregation.
-- Allows for declaration of tabled predicates either
automatically by the system or manually by the user.
-- Provides standard tabling predicates which can be used to
program a number of applications like meta-interpreters for
the well-founded semantics (provided as an example program).
-- Allows full Prolog functionality in tabled code, including
cuts (subject to weak semantic restructions), meta-logical
predicates, second-order predicates, etc.
HiLog supports a type of higher-order programming in which predicate symbols
can be variable or structured. This allows unification to be performed on the
predicate symbols themselves in addition to the arguments of the predicates.
XSB's HiLog implementation:
-- Includes a fully integrated HiLog preprocessor. HiLog terms can
be used anywhere in XSB, including the interpreter level.
-- Provides a number of meta-logical standard predicates for
HiLog terms.
Compiler optimizations for HiLog terms are currently under development.
How To Obtain XSB
1) Issue FTP command to connect to our ftp server
ftp sbcs.sunysb.edu or ftp 130.245.1.15
When asked for Name, respond with "anonymous".
When asked for Password, respond with your e-mail address.
2) Issue the following change directory command to where the XSB system is
cd pub/XSB
3) Change transfer mode to binary
binary
4) Now retrieve the XSB system
get XSB.tar.Z
5) Exit the ftp program
quit
6) Now uncompress and untar the files
uncompress -c XSB.tar.Z | tar xvf -
Note that this command uncompresses the files into the current
working directory, and creates a directory named XSB.
7) From here on read the README file (in directory XSB) that among
other things describes how to install the XSB system.
XSB is also be available through Gopher (archie).
--
Please send submissions for comp.os.386bsd.announce to:
386bsd-announce@agate.berkeley.edu