The programming language GCLA: A definitional approach to logic programming

Abstract

We present a logic programming language, GCLA (Generalized horn Clause LAnguage), that is based on a generalization of Prolog. This generalization is unusual in that it takes a quite different view of the meaning of a logic program--a "definitional" view rather than the traditional logical view. GCLA has a number of noteworthy properties, for instance hypothetical and non-monotonic reasoning. This makes implementation of reasoning in knowledge-based systems more direct in GCLA than in Prolog. GCLA is also general enough to incorporate functional programming as a special case. GCLA and its syntax and semantics are described. The use of various language constructs are illustrated with several examples.