SWI-Prolog

TLDR

SWI‑Prolog is a community‑driven, non‑commercial Prolog system that has evolved through research prototypes, community contributions adding interfaces and CLP libraries, and commercial involvement adding a garbage collector, interfaces, PlDoc, and PlUnit. This article presents SWI‑Prolog as an integrating tool that supports diverse Prolog community ideas and serves as glue between foreign resources. The article itself functions as glue between technical SWI‑Prolog papers, offering context and experience accumulated over time.

Abstract

Abstract SWI-Prolog is neither a commercial Prolog system nor a purely academic enterprise, but increasingly a community project. The core system has been shaped to its current form while being used as a tool for building research prototypes, primarily for knowledge-intensive and interactive systems. Community contributions have added several interfaces and the constraint (CLP) libraries. Commercial involvement has created the initial garbage collector, added several interfaces and two development tools: PlDoc (a literate programming documentation system) and PlUnit (a unit testing environment). In this article, we present SWI-Prolog as an integrating tool, supporting a wide range of ideas developed in the Prolog community and acting as glue between foreign resources. This article itself is the glue between technical articles on SWI-Prolog, providing context and experience in applying them over a longer period.