Concatting a list of strings in Prolog

Question

I'm writing a Lisp to C translator and I have a problem with handling strings. This is a code that transforms an unary Lisp function to a C equivalent:

define(F) --> fun_unary(F), !.

fun_unary(F) --> "(define (", label(Fun), spaces, label(Arg1), ")", spaces, expr(Body), ")",
  {swritef(F, "data *%t(data *%t) { return(%t); }", [Fun, Arg1, Body])}, !.


funs([F])  --> define(F), !.
funs([F|Fs]) --> define(F), spaces, funs(Fs), !.

Now I want to read any number of functions and return them as a single string. The above funs is the best I could come up with, but it works like this:

?- funs(F, "(define (carzero l) (= (car l) 0)) (define (zero n) (= 0 n))", []).
F = ["data *carzero(data *l) { return(eq(car(l), make_atom_int(0))); }", "data *zero(data *n) { return(eq(make_atom_int(0), n)); }"].

While I want something like this:

F = "data *carzero(data *l) { return(eq(car(l), make_atom_int(0))); }\n\ndata *zero(data *n) { return(eq(make_atom_int(0), n)); }".

so that I can nicely swritef is into a complete program, between #includes and main(). An alternative solution is to modify the highest level translator to handle the list. It curently looks like this:

program(P) --> define(F), {swritef(P, "#include \"lisp2c.h\" \n\n%t \nint main() { return 0; }", [F])}, !.

How would I do any of these two? I'm using SWI Prolog.

Answer 1

Setting aside for now the purpose for which it's needed, let's write a Prolog predicate that concatenates a list of strings into one string, placing a double newline between each consecutive pair of strings (but not at the end of the output string, judging by the example that Jerry posted).

SWI-Prolog Manual: Normally I'd post "deep" links to the documentation, but the SWI-Prolog site uses a style of URL that triggers cross-site scripting (XSS) warnings with many browser/plugin combinations. So instead I'll refer than link to the appropriate section.

Section 4.22 Representing text in strings says (in part), "String objects by default have no lexical representation and thus can only be created using the predicates below or through the foreign language interface." This can be a little confusing, as SWI-Prolog writes strings as double-quoted text, but reads double-quoted text (by default) as lists of character codes.

Here's code for a predicate that concatenates the strings in a list, inserting another string Separator in between consecutive string pairs:

strSepCat([ ],_,Empty) :-
    string_to_list(Empty,[ ]).
strSepCat([H|T],Separator,StrCat) :-
    strSepCat(T,Separator,H,StrCat).

strSepCat([ ],_,StrCat,StrCat).
strSepCat([H|T],Sep,Str,Cat) :-
    string_concat(Sep,H,SepH),
    string_concat(Str,SepH,StrSepH),
    strSepCat(T,Sep,StrSepH,Cat).

Note that we've defined two predicates, strSepCat/3 and strSepCat/4. The former is defined in terms of the latter, a typical design pattern in Prolog that introduces an extra argument as an accumulator that binds to an output when recursion is complete. Such a technique is often helpful in getting a tail recursive definition.

To use the predicate strSepCat/3, we'd generally need to construct the separator string with (the escape sequence for) two newlines:

?- funs(Fs,Lisp,[ ]), string_to_list(Sep,"\n\n"), strSepCat(Fs,Sep,CProg).

Answer 2

What about using DCG notation for appending the strings?

concat([]) --> [].
concat([List|Lists]) --> List, "\n\n", concat(Lists).

Answer 3

Since strings in Prolog are really lists of character codes, you can use append in a custom predicate that also inserts the newlines:

concat_program([], "").
concat_program([L|Ls], Str) :-
    concat_program(Ls, Str0),
    append("\n\n", Str0, Str1),
    append(L, Str1, Str).

Usage:

funs(Fs, Lisp, []),
concat_program(Fs, P),
write("#include ...\n"),
writef(P).