The GNU Prolog system and its implementation

Abstract

We describe in this paper the GNU-Prolog system, a free system consisting of a Prolog compiler and a constraint solver on finite domains. GNU-Prolog is based on a low-level mini-assembly platform-independent language that makes it possible for efficient compilation time, and allows to produce small stand alone executable files as the result of the compilation process. Interestingly, the Prolog part is compliant to the ISO standard, and the constraint part includes several extensions, such as an efficient handling of reified constraints. The overall system is efficient and comparable in performances with commercial systems, both for the Prolog and constraint parts.