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Date:Mon May 28 02:10:52 2002 
Subject:Re: Weird poplog-Prolog behaviour.. 
From:Aaron Sloman See text for reply address 
Volume-ID:1020428.01 

[To reply replace "Aaron.Sloman.XX" with "A.Sloman"]

The following query did not reach the Birmingham news server for some
reason, though I noticed it on google groups.

Bill J Ellis (bill.j.ellis@btinternet.com) writes:

> Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2002 20:38:03 +0000 (UTC)
 
> Hi.
>
> I have encountered some intresting behaviour of
> poplog-Prolog, while (trying to) port over a
> Sicstus system.
>
> An example is probally best. Start a normal poplog-prolog
> session.
> $prolog
>
> And add some facts..
>
> ?- [user].
> | dummy(x-2).
> | dummy(x-1).
> | dummy(x-(0)).
> | dummy(0-x).
> | dummy(x-0).
>
> ;;; PROLOG SYNTAX ERROR - OPERATOR, ',', OR ')' EXPECTED
> ;;; FOUND  : 0
> ;;; READING: o ( x <<HERE>> 0
>
> It seems that somthing-0 has a special significance?
> Am i missing somthing obvious here?
>
> Yours,
>
> Bill J Ellis

I have managed to duplicate this error. I have no explanation
for it.

    dummy(x+0).

causes no problem. Also

    silly(-0).

is fine.

    dummy(x-0.33).

is OK. but

    dummy(x-0.0).

produces

 ;;; PROLOG SYNTAX ERROR - OPERATOR, ',', OR ')' EXPECTED
 ;;; FOUND  : 0.0
 ;;; READING: dum ( x <<HERE>> 0.0
 ;;; FILE   : /home/axs/fetched/fpfp.pl     LINE NUMBER: 7

 ;;; [execution aborted]

whereas

    dummy(x - 0).
    dummy(x - 0.0).

are fine. It looks as if the prolog itemiser is treating "-0" and "-0.0"
as if they used unary minus, but not "-1".

Why?


Aaron




Does anyone understand why this happens, before I start investigating
the source code for Poplog prolog?

Aaron
====
Aaron Sloman, ( http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~axs/ )
School of Computer Science, The University of Birmingham, B15 2TT, UK
EMAIL A.Sloman AT cs.bham.ac.uk   (ReadATas@please !)
PAPERS: http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/cogaff/ (And free book on Philosophy of AI)
FREE TOOLS: http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/poplog/freepoplog.html