portray_text.pl -- Portray textportray_text.pl -- Portray textSWI-Prolog has the special string data type. However, in Prolog, text may be represented more traditionally as a list of character-codes, i.e. (small) integers (in SWI-Prolog specifically, those are Unicode code points). This results in output like the following (here using the backquote notation which maps text to a list of codes):
?- writeln(`hello`).
[104, 101, 108, 108, 111]
?- atom_codes("hello",X).
X = [104,101,108,108,111].
Unless you know the Unicode tables by heart, this is pretty unpleasant
for debugging. Loading library(portray_text) makes the toplevel and
debugger consider certain lists of integers as text and print them as
text. This is called "portraying". Of course, interpretation is
imperfect as there is no way to tell in general whether [65,66] should
written as `AB` or as [65,66]. Therefore it is important that the
user be aware of the fact that this conversion is enabled. This is why
this library must be loaded explicitly.
To be able to copy the printed representation and paste it back, printed
text is enclosed in back quotes if current_prolog_flag/2 for the flag
back_quotes is codes (the default), and enclosed in double quotes
otherwise. Certain control characters are printed out in
backslash-escaped form.
The default heuristic only considers list of codes as text if the codes are all from the set of 7-bit ASCII without most of the control characters. A code is classified as text by text_code/1, which in turn calls is_text_code/1. Define portray_text:is_text_code/1 to succeed on additional codes for more flexibility (by default, that predicate succeeds nowhere). For example:
?- maplist([C,R]>>(portray_text:text_code(C)->R=y;R=n),
`G\u00e9n\u00e9rateur`,Results).
Results = [y,n,y,n,y,y,y,y,y,y].
Now make is_text_code/1 accept anything:
?- [user]. |: portray_text:is_text_code(_). |: ^D % user://3 compiled 0.00 sec, 1 clauses true.
Then:
?- maplist([C,R]>>(portray_text:text_code(C)->R=y;R=n),
`G\u00e9n\u00e9rateur`,Results).
Results = [y,y,y,y,y,y,y,y,y,y].
portray_text(+OnOff:boolean) is dettrue, consider lists of integers
as list of Unicode code points and print them as corresponding text
inside quotes: `text` or "text". Quoting depends on the
value of current_prolog_flag/2 back_quotes. Same as
?- set_portray_text(enabled, true).
set_portray_text(+Key, +Value) is det set_portray_text(+Key, ?Old, +New) is detstart...end.The following predicates are exported from this file while their implementation is defined in imported modules or non-module files loaded by this module.
set_portray_text(+Key, +Value) is det set_portray_text(+Key, ?Old, +New) is detstart...end.