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Conditions & Assignments

Conditions​

Rules can be enriched with conditions in order to constrain specific values for variables of the body. Syntactically, the conditions follow the body of the rule. A condition is the comparison (>,<,==,>=,<=,<>) of a variable (the LHS of the comparison) of the body and an expression (the RHS of the comparison).

Notice that although the comparison symbols used in conditions are partially overlapped with the symbols for comparison operators they have different semantics. While comparison operators calculate Boolean results, comparison symbols in conditions only specify a filter.

Each rule can have multiple comma-separated conditions.

contract("Mark",14).
contract("Jeff",22).
rich(X) :- contract(X,Y),Y>=20.
@output("rich").

In the example we individuate the contracts for Y>=20 and classify the respective employee as rich. The expected result is:

rich("Jeff").

Consider this next example:

balanceItem(1, 7, 2, 5).
balanceItem(2, 2, 2, 7).
error(E, I) :- balanceItem(I, X, Y, Z), X <> Y+Z.
@output("error").

Here, we individuate the balance items for which X is different from the sum of Y and Z and report an error E for the identifier I of such an item. The expected result is:

error(_e, 2).

This next example selects the senior English players.

player(1, "Chelsea").
age(1, 24).
player(2, "Bayern").
team("Chelsea").
age(2, 25).
player(2, "Bayern").
team("Chelsea").
age(2, 25).
player(3, "Chelsea").
age(3, 18).
team("Chelsea").
team("Bayern").
seniorEnglish(X) :- player(X, Y), team(Y), age(X, A), Y=="Chelsea", A > 20.
@output("seniorEnglish").

They are those who play with Chelsea with age greater than 20. The expected result is:

seniorEnglish(1).

Assignment​

Rules can be enriched with assignments in order to generate specific values for existentially quantified variables of the head. Syntactically, the assignments follow the body of the rule. An assignment is the equation (=) of a variable (the LHS of the equation) of the body and an expression (the RHS of the equation).

Each rule can have multiple comma-separated assignments.

balanceItem("loans", 23.0).
balanceItem("deposits", 20.0).
operations(Q, Z, A) :- balanceItem(I1,X), balanceItem(I2,Y),
                       I1=="loans", I2=="deposits", 
                       Z=X+Y, 
                       A=(X+Y)/2.
@output("operations").

This example generates a fact for operations, summing two balance items, one for loans and one for deposits. Observe that I1=="loans" and I2=="deposits" are conditions to select the balanceItems (as I1 and I2 appear in the body), whereas Z=X+Y and A=(X+Y)/2 are assignments (as Z and A do not appear in the body).

The expected result is:

operations(_q, 43, 21.5).