Composing recursive logic programs with clausal join (Q1109585)

A family of methods for composing logic programs from simpler components is presented. Specifically, simple pairs of programs operating on lists, trees and other recursive structures are composed to generate a single program with composite functionality. The methods are based on clausal join, a specific sequence of unfold/fold transformations for deriving a new clause from a given pair of clauses and a joint specification. Procedural join composes a new procedure from two given procedures by applying clausal join to all pairs of their clauses. 1-1 join composes a new procedure from closely related procedures by applying causal join to corresponding pairs only. Meta join is a modification of 1-1 joint for composing meta-interpreters. The transformations are straightforward to implement in Prolog, as is demonstrated in the paper.