Comparison and unification of arbitrary terms. Terms are ordered in
the so-called “standard order” . This order is defined as
follows:
- Variables < Numbers < Strings
< Atoms < Compound Terms
- Variables are sorted by address.
- Numbers are compared by value. Mixed rational/float are
compared using cmpr/2.68Up
to 9.1.4, comparison was done as float. NaN is considered
smaller than all numbers, including
-inf. If the comparison
is equal, the float is considered the smaller value. If the Prolog flag
iso is defined, all
floating point numbers precede all rationals.
- Strings are compared alphabetically.
- Atoms are compared alphabetically.
- Compound terms are first checked on their arity, then on
their functor name (alphabetically) and finally recursively on their
arguments, leftmost argument first.
Although variables are ordered, there are some unexpected properties
one should keep in mind when relying on variable ordering. This applies
to the predicates below as to predicate such as sort/2
as well as libraries that reply on ordering such as library library(assoc)
and library
library(ordsets). Obviously, an established relation A @<
As stated above, variables are sorted by address, which implies that
they are sorted by‘age’, where‘older’variables
are ordered before‘newer’variables. If two variables are
unified their‘shared’age is the age of oldest variable. This
implies we can examine a list of sorted variables with‘newer’(fresh)
variables without invalidating the order. Attaching an attribute,
see section 8.1, turns an‘old’variable
into a‘new’one as illustrated below. Note that the first
always succeeds as the first argument of a term is always the oldest.
This only applies for the first attribute, i.e., further
manipulation of the attribute list does not change the‘age’.
?- T = f(A,B), A @< B.
T = f(A, B).
?- T = f(A,B), put_attr(A, name, value), A @< B.
false.
The above implies you can use e.g., an assoc (from library
library(assoc), implemented as an AVL tree) to maintain
information about a set of variables. You must be careful about what you
do with the attributes though. In many cases it is more robust to use
attributes to register information about variables.
Note that the standard order is not well defined on
rational trees, also known as cyclic terms. This
issue
was identified by Mats Carlsson, quoted below. See also
issue#1162
on GitHub.
Consider the terms A and B defined by
the equations
[1] A = s(B,0).
[2] B = s(A,1).
- Clearly, A and B are not identical, so either
A @< B or A @> B must hold.
- Assume
A @< B. But then, s(A,1) @> s(B,0)
i.e.,
B @< A. Contradicton.
- Assume
A @> B. But then, s(A,1) @< s(B,0)
i.e.,
B @< A. Contradicton.
- [ISO]@Term1 == @Term2
- True if Term1 is equivalent to Term2. A variable
is only identical to a sharing variable.
- [ISO]@Term1 \== @Term2
- Equivalent to
\+Term1 == Term2
- [ISO]@Term1 @< @Term2
- True if Term1 is before Term2 in the standard
order of terms.
- [ISO]@Term1 @=< @Term2
- True if both terms are equal (==/2)
or Term1 is before Term2 in the standard order of
terms.
- [ISO]@Term1 @> @Term2
- True if Term1 is after Term2 in the standard order
of terms.
- [ISO]@Term1 @>= @Term2
- True if both terms are equal (==/2)
or Term1 is after Term2 in the standard order of
terms.
- [ISO]compare(?Order,
@Term1, @Term2)
- Determine or test the Order between two terms in the standard
order of terms. Order is one of
<>=
1 
