From tarau@cs.sfu.ca Mon Jan 24 14:46:26 EST 1994
Article: 9405 of comp.lang.prolog
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From: tarau@cs.sfu.ca (Paul Tarau)
Subject: BinProlog 2.20 with Tcl/Tk interface and EDCGs
Message-ID: <1994Jan20.233624.23925@cs.sfu.ca>
Organization: CSS, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, B.C., Canada
Distribution: comp.lang.prolog, comp.lang.tcl
Date: Thu, 20 Jan 1994 23:36:24 GMT
Lines: 72

A BinProlog server for the Tcl/Tk visual programming environment is
available from

   clement.info.umoncton.ca

together with the new BinProlog 2.20 release in the file

   pub/BinProlog/BinProlog.2.20.tar.gz

The interface uses tcl7.3 with tk3.6 combined with addinput-3.6a.  It
consists of a _very_ few pages of Prolog and Tcl code.  Thanks to the
strong metaprogramming capabilities of both languages the interface
boldly `compiles' their objects to evaluable representations on the
other side. It is portable between present (and future :-) ) Tcl/Tk
implementations and requires no C-programming. The BinProlog server is
connected to it's master Tcl application through a bidirectional pipe
and it is able to generate and react to Tcl/Tk events.

For Prolog programmers it gives access to megabytes of free Tcl/Tk
programs and program generators for graphic user interfaces,
network communication, distributed programming facilities, high-level
X programming, regular expression search, etc.

For Tcl/Tk programmers it adds a high-performance logic programming
engine which can be seamlessly integrated in their applications.
BinProlog (a fast C-emulated compiler) executes list processing and other
symbolic operations at more than an order of magnitude faster than Tcl
scripts (see nrev.tcl vs. nrev.pl).

A few demo programs (as a Prolog-driven N-Queens with interactive
Tcl/Tk visualisation) give an idea of what can be done with the
composit environment.

This is a beta version of the BinProlog TCL/Tk interface which
has been tested for 

   Sparcs with SunOs 4.x or Solaris 2.x 
   SGIs with IRIX 4.0.5.

However it may work also on other systems for which BinProlog 2.20
executables are included.  If found useful, it will be properly ported
to some of the other platforms on which BinProlog is already running,
i.e:

  - DEC Alpha - (64 bit version)
  - DEC Mips -
  - IBM R6000;
  - 68k - NeXT, SUN3;
  - 386-486-Pentium (MsDOS+Windows 3.1 - with DOS-extender go32 ver. 1.10 
    by D.J. Delorie).

For help on the Tcl/Tk installation and programming please take a look
at the FAQs on comp.lang.tcl.  Comments and BinProlog questions should
be addressed to binprolog@info.umoncton.ca.

The Tcl/Tk files can be obtained from:

      Tcl - 7.3          ftp.cs.berkeley.edu:/ucb/tcl/tcl7.3.tar.Z
      Tk  - 3.6          ftp.cs.berkeley.edu:/ucb/tcl/tk3.6.tar.Z

      addinput-3.6a      harbor.ecn.purdue.edu:~ftp/pub/tcl/extensions

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Paul Tarau 
tarau@cs.sfu.ca


P.S. BinProlog 2.20 which supports the TCL/TK package (in directory
TCL) also comes with an alternative run-time  system (in directory
EDCG) which integrates Peter Van Roy's Extended DCGs as a standard
feature. I found them a very practical shorthand for a lot of typical
Prolog programming patterns.