The general arithmetic predicates are optionally compiled (see
set_prolog_flag/2
and the -O command line option). Compiled arithmetic
reduces global stack requirements and improves performance.
Unfortunately compiled arithmetic cannot be traced, which is why it is
optional.
- [ISO]+Expr1 > +Expr2
- True if expression Expr1 evaluates to a larger number than Expr2.
- [ISO]+Expr1 < +Expr2
- True if expression Expr1 evaluates to a smaller number than Expr2.
- [ISO]+Expr1 =< +Expr2
- True if expression Expr1 evaluates to a smaller or equal
number to Expr2.
- [ISO]+Expr1 >= +Expr2
- True if expression Expr1 evaluates to a larger or equal
number to Expr2.
- [ISO]+Expr1 =\= +Expr2
- True if expression Expr1 evaluates to a number non-equal to
Expr2.
- [ISO]+Expr1 =:= +Expr2
- True if expression Expr1 evaluates to a number equal to
Expr2.
- [ISO]-Number is +Expr
- True when Number is the value to which Expr
evaluates. Typically, is/2
should be used with unbound left operand. If equality is to be tested, =:=/2
should be used. For example:
?- 1 is sin(pi/2). | Fails! sin(pi/2)
evaluates to the float 1.0, which does not unify with the integer 1. |
?- 1 =:= sin(pi/2). | Succeeds as expected. |
SWI-Prolog
defines the following numeric types:
- integer
If SWI-Prolog is built using the GNU multiple precision arithmetic
library (GMP), integer arithmetic is unbounded,
which means that the size of integers is limited by available memory
only. Without GMP, SWI-Prolog integers are 64-bits, regardless of the
native integer size of the platform. The type of integer support can be
detected using the Prolog flags bounded, min_integer
and
max_integer. As
the use of GMP is default, most of the following descriptions assume
unbounded integer arithmetic.
Internally, SWI-Prolog has three integer representations. Small
integers (defined by the Prolog flag max_tagged_integer)
are encoded directly. Larger integers are represented as 64-bit values
on the global stack. Integers that do not fit in 64 bits are represented
as serialised GNU MPZ structures on the global stack.
- rational number
Rational numbers (Q) are quotients of two integers (N/M).
Rational arithmetic is only provided if GMP is used (see above).
Rational numbers satisfy the type tests rational/1, number/1
and atomic/1
and may satisfy the type test integer/1,
i.e., integers are considered rational numbers. Rational numbers are
always kept in canonical representation, which means M
is positive and N and M have no common divisors.
Rational numbers are introduced into the computation using the functions
rational/1, rationalize/1
or the rdiv/2
(rational division) function. If the Prolog flag
prefer_rationals
is true (default), division (//2)
and integer power (^/2)
also produce a rational number.
- float
Floating point numbers are represented using the C type double.
On most of today's platforms these are 64-bit IEEE floating point
numbers.
Arithmetic functions that require integer arguments accept, in
addition to integers, rational numbers with (canonical) denominator‘1'.
If the required argument is a float the argument is converted to float.
Note that conversion of integers to floating point numbers may raise an
overflow exception. In all other cases, arguments are converted to the
same type using the order below.
integer → rational number →
floating point number
The use of rational numbers with unbounded integers allows for exact
integer or fixed point arithmetic under addition, subtraction,
multiplication, division and exponentiation (^/2).
Support for rational numbers depends on the Prolog flag
prefer_rationals.
If this is true (default), the number division function (//2)
and exponentiation function (^/2)
generate a rational number on integer and rational arguments and read/1
and friends read [-+][0-9_ ]+/[0-9_ ]+ into a rational
number. See also section
2.16.1.6. Here are some examples.
| A is 2/6 | A = 1/3 |
| A is 4/3 + 1 | A = 7/3 |
| A is 4/3 + 1.5 | A = 2.83333 |
| A is 4/3 + rationalize(1.5) | A = 17/6 |
Note that floats cannot represent all decimal numbers exactly. The
function rational/1
creates an exact equivalent of the float, while rationalize/1
creates a rational number that is within the float rounding error from
the original float. Please check the documentation of these functions
for details and examples.
Rational numbers can be printed as decimal numbers with arbitrary
precision using the format/3
floating point conversion:
?- A is 4/3 + rational(1.5),
format('~50f~n', [A]).
2.83333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333
A = 17/6
SWI-Prolog uses rational number arithmetic if the Prolog flag
prefer_rationals
is true and if this is defined for a function on the given
operants. This results in perfectly precise answers. Unfortunately
rational numbers can get really large and, if a precise answer is not
needed, a big waste of memory and CPU time. In such cases one should use
floating point arithmetic. The Prolog flag
max_rational_size
provides a tripwire to detect cases where rational numbers get
big and react on these events.
Floating point arithmetic can be forced by forcing a float into an
argument at any point, i.e., the result of a function with at least one
float is always float except for the float-to-integer rounding and
truncating functions such as round/1, rational/1
or float_integer_part/1.
Float arithmetic is typically forced by using a floating point
constant as initial value or operant. Alternatively, the float/1
function forces conversion of the argument.
The Prolog ISO standard defines that floating point arithmetic
returns a valid floating point number or raises an exception. IEEE
floating point arithmetic defines two modes: raising exceptions and
propagating the special float values NaN, Inf, -Inf
and
-0.0. SWI-Prolog implements a part of the
ECLiPSe
proposal to support non-exception based processing of floating point
numbers. There are four flags that define handling the four exceptional
events in floating point arithmetic, providing the choice between
error and returning the IEEE special value. Note that these
flags only apply for floating point arithmetic. For example
rational division by zero always raises an exception.
The Prolog flag float_rounding
and the function
roundtoward/2
control the rounding mode for floating point arithmetic. The default
rounding is to_nearest and the following alternatives are
provided: to_positive, to_negative and
to_zero.
- [det]float_class(+Float,
-Class)
- Wraps C99 fpclassify() to access the class of a floating point number.
Raises a type error if Float is not a float. Defined classes
are below.
- nan
- Float is “Not a number''. See nan/0.
May be produced if the Prolog flag float_undefined
is set to
nan. Although IEEE 754 allows NaN to carry a payload
and have a sign, SWI-Prolog has only a single NaN values. Note that two
NaN
terms compare equal in the standard order of terms (==/2,
etc.), they compare non-equal for arithmetic (=:=/2,
etc.).
- infinite
- Float is positive or negative infinity. See inf/0.
May be produced if the Prolog flag float_overflow
or the flag float_zero_div
is set to
infinity.
- zero
- Float is zero (0.0 or -0.0)
- subnormal
- Float is too small to be represented in normalized format.
May not be produced if the Prolog flag
float_underflow
is set to
error.
- normal
- Float is a normal floating point number.
- [det]float_parts(+Float,
-Mantissa, -Base, -Exponent)
- True when Mantissa is the normalized fraction of Float,
Base is the radix and Exponent is the
exponent. This uses the C function frexp(). If Float is NaN
or ±Inf
Mantissa has the same value and Exponent is 0
(zero). In the current implementation Base is always 2. The
following relation is always true:
Float =:= Mantissa × Base^Exponent
- [det]bounded_number(?Low,
?High, +Num)
- True if Low < Num < High. Raises
a type error if Num is not a number. This predicate can be
used both to check and generate bounds across the various numeric types.
Note that a number cannot be bounded by itself and
NaN, Inf,
and -Inf are not bounded numbers.
If Low and/or High are variables they will be
unified with tightest values that still meet the bounds
criteria. The generated bounds will be integers if Num is an
integer; otherwise they will be floats (also see nexttoward/2
for generating float bounds). Some examples:
?- bounded_number(0,10,1).
true.
?- bounded_number(0.0,1.0,1r2).
true.
?- bounded_number(L,H,1.0).
L = 0.9999999999999999,
H = 1.0000000000000002.
?- bounded_number(L,H,-1).
L = -2,
H = 0.
?- bounded_number(0,1r2,1).
false.
?- bounded_number(L,H,1.0Inf).
false.
SWI-Prolog represents floats using the C double type. On
virtually all modern hardware this implies it uses 64-bit IEEE 754
floating point numbers. See also section
4.27.2.4. All floating point arithmetic is performed using C.
Different C compilers, different C math libraries and different hardware
floating point support may yield different results for the same
expression on different instances of SWI-Prolog.
Arithmetic functions are terms which are evaluated by the arithmetic
predicates described in section
4.27.2. There are four types of arguments to functions:
| Expr | Arbitrary expression, returning either
a floating point value or an integer. |
| IntExpr | Arbitrary expression that must
evaluate to an integer. |
| RatExpr | Arbitrary expression that must
evaluate to a rational number. |
| FloatExpr | Arbitrary expression that must
evaluate to a floating point. |
For systems using bounded integer arithmetic (default is unbounded,
see section 4.27.2.1
for details), integer operations that would cause overflow automatically
convert to floating point arithmetic.
SWI-Prolog provides many extensions to the set of floating point
functions defined by the ISO standard. The current policy is to provide
such functions on‘as-needed' basis if the function is widely
supported elsewhere and notably if it is part of the
C99
mathematical library. In addition, we try to maintain compatibility with
other Prolog implementations.
- [ISO]- +Expr
- Result = -Expr
- [ISO]+ +Expr
- Result = Expr. Note that if
++?- integer(+1) succeeds.
- [ISO]+Expr1 + +Expr2
- Result = Expr1 + Expr2
- [ISO]+Expr1 - +Expr2
- Result = Expr1 - Expr2
- [ISO]+Expr1 * +Expr2
- Result = Expr1 × Expr2
- [ISO]+Expr1 / +Expr2
- Result = Expr1/Expr2. If the
flag iso is
true
or one of the arguments is a float, both arguments are converted to
float and the return value is a float. Otherwise the result type depends
on the Prolog flag
prefer_rationals.
If true, the result is always a rational number. If false
the result is rational if at least one of the arguments is rational.
Otherwise (both arguments are integer) the result is integer if the
division is exact and float otherwise. See also section
4.27.2.2, ///2, and rdiv/2.
The current default for the Prolog flag prefer_rationals
is
false. Future version may switch this to true,
providing precise results when possible. The pitfall is that in general
rational arithmetic is slower and can become very slow and produce huge
numbers that require a lot of (global stack) memory. Code for which the
exact results provided by rational numbers is not needed should force
float results by making one of the operants float, for example by
dividing by
10.0 rather than 10 or by using float/1.
Note that when one of the arguments is forced to a float the division is
a float operation while if the result is forced to the float the
division is done using rational arithmetic.
- [ISO]+IntExpr1 mod +IntExpr2
- Modulo, defined as Result = IntExpr1 - (IntExpr1
div IntExpr2) × IntExpr2, where
div
is
floored division.
- [ISO]+IntExpr1 rem +IntExpr2
- Remainder of integer division. Behaves as if defined by
Result is IntExpr1 - (IntExpr1 // IntExpr2) × IntExpr2
- [ISO]+IntExpr1 // +IntExpr2
- Integer division, defined as Result is rnd_I(Expr1/Expr2)
. The function rnd_I is the default rounding used by the C
compiler and available through the Prolog flag
integer_rounding_function.
In the C99 standard, C-rounding is defined as
towards_zero.124Future
versions might guarantee rounding towards zero.
- [ISO]div(+IntExpr1,
+IntExpr2)
- Integer division, defined as Result is (IntExpr1 - IntExpr1 mod IntExpr2)
// IntExpr2. In other words, this is integer division that
rounds towards -infinity. This function guarantees behaviour that is
consistent with
mod/2, i.e., the
following holds for every pair of integers
X,Y where
Y =\= 0.
Q is div(X, Y),
M is mod(X, Y),
X =:= Y*Q+M.
- +RatExpr rdiv +RatExpr
- Rational number division. This function is only available if SWI-Prolog
has been compiled with rational number support. See
section 4.27.2.2 for
details.
- +IntExpr1 gcd +IntExpr2
- Result is the greatest common divisor of IntExpr1 and
IntExpr2. The GCD is always a positive integer. If either
expression evaluates to zero the GCD is the result of the other
expression.
- +IntExpr1 lcm +IntExpr2
- Result is the least common multiple of IntExpr1,
IntExpr2.bugIf the
system is compiled for bounded integers only lcm/2
produces an integer overflow if the product of the two expressions does
not fit in a 64 bit signed integer. The default build with unbounded
integer support has no such limit. If either expression
evaluates to zero the LCM is zero.
- [ISO]abs(+Expr)
- Evaluate Expr and return the absolute value of it.
- [ISO]sign(+Expr)
- Evaluate to -1 if Expr < 0, 1 if Expr
> 0 and 0 if
Expr = 0. If Expr evaluates to a float,
the return value is a float (e.g., -1.0, 0.0 or 1.0). In particular,
note that sign(-0.0) evaluates to 0.0. See also copysign/2.
- cmpr(+Expr1,
+Expr2)
- Exactly compares the values Expr1 and Expr2 and
returns -1 if Expr1 < Expr2, 0 if they are
equal, and 1 if
Expr1 > Expr2. Evaluates to NaN if either or
both
Expr1 and Expr2 are NaN and the Prolog flag
float_undefined
is set to
nan. See also
minr/2 amd maxr/2.
This function relates to the Prolog numerical comparison predicates
>/2, =:=/2,
etc. The Prolog numerical comparison converts the rational in a mixed
rational/float comparison to a float, possibly rounding the value. This
function converts the float to a rational, comparing the exact values.
- [ISO]copysign(+Expr1,
+Expr2)
- Evaluate to X, where the absolute value of X
equals the absolute value of Expr1 and the sign of X
matches the sign of Expr2. This function is based on
copysign() from C99, which works on double precision floats and deals
with handling the sign of special floating point values such as -0.0.
Our implementation follows C99 if both arguments are floats. Otherwise, copysign/2
evaluates to Expr1 if the sign of both expressions matches or
-Expr1 if the signs do not match. Here, we use the extended
notion of signs for floating point numbers, where the sign of -0.0 and
other special floats is negative.
- nexttoward(+Expr1,
+Expr2)
- Evaluates to floating point number following Expr1 in the
direction of Expr2. This relates to epsilon/0
in the following way:
?- epsilon =:= nexttoward(1,2)-1.
true.
- roundtoward(+Expr1,
+RoundMode)
- Evaluate Expr1 using the floating point rounding mode
RoundMode. This provides a local alternative to the Prolog
flag
float_rounding.
This function can be nested. The supported values for RoundMode
are the same as the flag values:
to_nearest, to_positive, to_negative
or
to_zero.
Note that floating point arithmetic is provided by the C compiler
and C runtime library. Unfortunately most C libraries do not
correctly implement the rounding modes for notably the trigonometry and
exponential functions. There exist correct libraries such as
crlibm, but
these libraries are large, most of them are poorly maintained or have an
incompatible license. C runtime libraries do a better job using the
default
to nearest rounding mode. SWI-Prolog now assumes this mode is
correct and translates upward rounding to be the nexttoward/2
infinity and downward rounding nexttoward/2
-infinity. If the “to nearest'' rounding mode is correct, this
ensures that the true value is between the downward and upward rounded
values, although the generated interval is larger than needed.
Unfortunately this is not the case as shown in Accuracy
of Mathematical Functions in Single, Double, Extended Double and
Quadruple Precision by Vincenzo Innocente and Paul Zimmermann.
- [ISO]max(+Expr1,
+Expr2)
- Evaluate to the larger of Expr1 and Expr2. Both
arguments are compared after converting to the same type, but the return
value is in the original type. For example, max(2.5, 3) compares the two
values after converting to float, but returns the integer 3. If both
values are numerical equal the returned max is of the type used for the
comparison. For example, the max of 1 and 1.0 is 1.0 because both
numbers are converted to float for the comparison. However, the special
float -0.0 is smaller than 0.0 as well as the integer 0. If the Prolog
flag float_undefined
is set to
nan and one of the arguments evaluates to NaN,
the result is NaN.
The function maxr/2
is similar, but uses exact (rational) comparision if Expr1
and Expr2 have a different type, propagate the rational
(integer) rather and the float if the two compare equal and propagate
the non-NaN value in case one is NaN.
- maxr(+Expr1,
+Expr2)
- Evaluate to the larger of Expr1 and Expr2 using
exact comparison (see cmpr/2).
If the two values are exactly equal, and one of the values is rational,
the result will be that value; the objective being to avoid "pollution"
of any precise calculation with a potentially imprecise float. So
max(1,1.0)
evaluates to 1.0 while maxr(1,1.0) evaluates to 1. This
also means that 0 is preferred over 0.0 or -0.0; -0.0 is still
considered smaller than 0.0.
maxr/2 also treats
NaN's as missing values so
maxr(1,nan) evaluates to 1.
- [ISO]min(+Expr1,
+Expr2)
- Evaluate to the smaller of Expr1 and Expr2. See
max/2 for a
description of type handling.
- minr(+Expr1,
+Expr2)
- Evaluate to the smaller of Expr1 and Expr2 using
exact comparison (see cmpr/2).
See maxr/2 for a
description of type handling.
- [deprecated].(+Char,[])
- A list of one element evaluates to the character code of this element.125The
function is documented as
./2[|]/2"a" evaluates to the character code of the
letter‘a' (97) using the traditional mapping of double quoted
string to a list of character codes. Char is either a valid
code point (non-negative integer up to the Prolog flag max_char_code)
or a one-character atom. Arithmetic evaluation also translates a string
object (see section 5.2)
of one character length into the character code for that character. This
implies that expression "a" works if the Prolog flag double_quotes
is set to one of
codes, chars or string.
Getting access to character codes this way originates from DEC10
Prolog. ISO has the 0'a syntax and the predicate char_code/2.
Future versions may drop support for X is "a".
- random(+IntExpr)
- Evaluate to a random integer i for which 0 ≤i < IntExpr.
The system has two implementations. If it is compiled with support for
unbounded arithmetic (default) it uses the GMP library random functions.
In this case, each thread keeps its own random state. The default
algorithm is the Mersenne Twister algorithm. The seed is set
when the first random number in a thread is generated. If available, it
is set from
/dev/random.126On
Windows the state is initialised from CryptGenRandom().
Otherwise it is set from the system clock. If unbounded arithmetic is
not supported, random numbers are shared between threads and the seed is
initialised from the clock when SWI-Prolog was started. The predicate set_random/1
can be used to control the random number generator.
Warning! Although properly seeded (if supported on the OS),
the Mersenne Twister algorithm does not produce
cryptographically secure random numbers. To generate cryptographically
secure random numbers, use crypto_n_random_bytes/2
from library library(crypto) provided by the ssl
package.
- random_float
- Evaluate to a random float I for which 0.0 < i <
1.0. This function shares the random state with random/1.
All remarks with the function random/1
also apply for random_float/0.
Note that both sides of the domain are open. This avoids
evaluation errors on, e.g., log/1
or //2 while no
practical application can expect 0.0.127Richard
O'Keefe said: “If you are generating IEEE doubles with
the claimed uniformity, then 0 has a 1 in 2^53 = 1 in
9,007,199,254,740,992 chance of turning up. No program that
expects [0.0,1.0) is going to be surprised when 0.0 fails to turn up in
a few millions of millions of trials, now is it? But a program that
expects (0.0,1.0) could be devastated if 0.0 did turn up.''
- [ISO]round(+Expr)
- Evaluate Expr and round the result to the nearest integer.
According to ISO, round/1
is defined as
floor(Expr+1/2), i.e., rounding down. This is an
unconventional choice under which the relation
round(Expr) == -round(-Expr) does not hold. SWI-Prolog
rounds outward, e.g., round(1.5) =:= 2 and
round(-1.5) =:= -2.
- integer(+Expr)
- Same as round/1
(backward compatibility).
- [ISO]float(+Expr)
- Translate the result to a floating point number. Normally, Prolog will
use integers whenever possible. When used around the 2nd argument of
is/2,
the result will be returned as a floating point number. In other
contexts, the operation has no effect.
- rational(+Expr)
- Convert the Expr to a rational number or integer. The
function returns the input on integers and rational numbers. For
floating point numbers, the returned rational number exactly
represents the float. As floats cannot exactly represent all decimal
numbers the results may be surprising. In the examples below, doubles
can represent 0.25 and the result is as expected, in contrast to the
result of
rational(0.1). The function rationalize/1
remedies this. See section
4.27.2.2 for more information on rational number support.
?- A is rational(0.25).
A is 1r4
?- A is rational(0.1).
A = 3602879701896397r36028797018963968
For every normal float X the relation
X =:=
This function raises an evaluation_error(undefined) if Expr
is NaN and evaluation_error(rational_overflow) if Expr
is Inf.
- rationalize(+Expr)
- Convert the Expr to a rational number or integer. The
function is similar to rational/1,
but the result is only accurate within the rounding error of floating
point numbers, generally producing a much smaller denominator.128The
names rational/1
and rationalize/1
as well as their semantics are inspired by Common Lisp.129The
implementation of rationalize as well as converting a rational number
into a float is copied from ECLiPSe and covered by the Cisco-style
Mozilla Public License Version 1.1.
?- A is rationalize(0.25).
A = 1r4
?- A is rationalize(0.1).
A = 1r10
For every normal float X the relation
X =:=
This function raises the same exceptions as rational/1
on non-normal floating point numbers.
- numerator(+RationalExpr)
- If RationalExpr evaluates to a rational number or integer,
evaluate to the top/left value. Evaluates to itself if
RationalExpr evaluates to an integer. See also
denominator/1.
The following is true for any rational
X.
X =:= numerator(X)/denominator(X).
- denominator(+RationalExpr)
- If RationalExpr evaluates to a rational number or integer,
evaluate to the bottom/right value. Evaluates to 1 (one) if
RationalExpr evaluates to an integer. See also
numerator/1. The
following is true for any rational X.
X =:= numerator(X)/denominator(X).
- [ISO]float_fractional_part(+Expr)
- Fractional part of a floating point number. Negative if Expr
is negative, rational if Expr is rational and 0 if Expr
is integer. The following relation is always true:
X is float_fractional_part(X) + float_integer_part(X).
- [ISO]float_integer_part(+Expr)
- Integer part of floating point number. Negative if Expr is
negative, Expr if Expr is integer.
- [ISO]truncate(+Expr)
- Truncate Expr to an integer. If Expr ≥
this is the same as
floor(Expr). For Expr <
0 this is the same as
ceil(Expr). That is, truncate/1
rounds towards zero.
- [ISO]floor(+Expr)
- Evaluate Expr and return the largest integer smaller or equal
to the result of the evaluation.
- [ISO]ceiling(+Expr)
- Evaluate Expr and return the smallest integer larger or equal
to the result of the evaluation.
- ceil(+Expr)
- Same as ceiling/1
(backward compatibility).
- [ISO]+IntExpr1 >> +IntExpr2
- Bitwise shift IntExpr1 by IntExpr2 bits to the
right. The operation performs arithmetic shift, which implies
that the inserted most significant bits are copies of the original most
significant bits.
- [ISO]+IntExpr1 << +IntExpr2
- Bitwise shift IntExpr1 by IntExpr2 bits to the
left.
- [ISO]+IntExpr1 \/ +IntExpr2
- Bitwise‘or' IntExpr1 and IntExpr2.
- [ISO]+IntExpr1 /\ +IntExpr2
- Bitwise‘and' IntExpr1 and IntExpr2.
- [ISO]+IntExpr1 xor +IntExpr2
- Bitwise‘exclusive or' IntExpr1 and IntExpr2.
- [ISO]\ +IntExpr
- Bitwise negation. The returned value is the one's complement of
IntExpr.
- [ISO]sqrt(+Expr)
- Result = √(Expr).
- [ISO]sin(+Expr)
- Result = sin(Expr). Expr is
the angle in radians.
- [ISO]cos(+Expr)
- Result = cos(Expr). Expr is
the angle in radians.
- [ISO]tan(+Expr)
- Result = tan(Expr). Expr is
the angle in radians.
- [ISO]asin(+Expr)
- Result = arcsin(Expr). Result
is the angle in radians.
- [ISO]acos(+Expr)
- Result = arccos(Expr). Result
is the angle in radians.
- [ISO]atan(+Expr)
- Result = arctan(Expr). Result
is the angle in radians.
- [ISO]atan2(+YExpr,
+XExpr)
- Result = arctan(YExpr/XExpr). Result
is the angle in radians. The return value is in the range [-π...π.
Used to convert between rectangular and polar coordinate system.
Note that the ISO Prolog standard demands atan2(0.0,0.0)
to raise an evaluation error, whereas the C99 and POSIX standards demand
this to evaluate to 0.0. SWI-Prolog follows C99 and POSIX.
- atan(+YExpr,
+XExpr)
- Same as atan2/2
(backward compatibility).
- sinh(+Expr)
- Result = sinh(Expr). The hyperbolic
sine of X is defined as e ** X - e ** -X / 2.
- cosh(+Expr)
- Result = cosh(Expr). The hyperbolic
cosine of X is defined as e ** X + e ** -X / 2.
- tanh(+Expr)
- Result = tanh(Expr). The hyperbolic
tangent of X is defined as sinh( X ) / cosh( X ).
- asinh(+Expr)
- Result = arcsinh(Expr) (inverse
hyperbolic sine).
- acosh(+Expr)
- Result = arccosh(Expr) (inverse
hyperbolic cosine).
- atanh(+Expr)
- Result = arctanh(Expr). (inverse
hyperbolic tangent).
- [ISO]log(+Expr)
- Natural logarithm. Result = ln(Expr)
- log10(+Expr)
- Base-10 logarithm. Result = log10(Expr)
- [ISO]exp(+Expr)
- Result = e **Expr
- [ISO]+Expr1 ** +Expr2
- Result = Expr1**Expr2. The
result is a float, unless SWI-Prolog is compiled with unbounded integer
support and the inputs are integers and produce an integer result. The
integer expressions 0 ** I, 1 ** I and -1 **
I are guaranteed to work for any integer I. Other
integer base values generate a
resource error if the result does not fit in memory.
The ISO standard demands a float result for all inputs and introduces
^/2 for integer
exponentiation. The function
float/1 can be used
on one or both arguments to force a floating point result. Note that
casting the input result in a floating point computation, while
casting the output performs integer exponentiation followed by
a conversion to float.
- [ISO]+Expr1 ^ +Expr2
-
In SWI-Prolog, ^/2 is
equivalent to **/2. The
ISO version is similar, except that it produces a evaluation error if
both
Expr1 and Expr2 are integers and the result is not
an integer. The table below illustrates the behaviour of the
exponentiation functions in ISO and SWI. Note that if the exponent is
negative the behavior of Int^
| Expr1 | Expr2 | Function | SWI | ISO |
| Int | Int | **/2 | Int
or Rational | Float |
| Int | Float | **/2 | Float | Float |
| Rational | Int | **/2 | Rational | - |
| Float | Int | **/2 | Float | Float |
| Float | Float | **/2 | Float | Float |
| Int | Int | ^/2 | Int
or Rational | Int or error |
| Int | Float | ^/2 | Float | Float |
| Rational | Int | ^/2 | Rational | - |
| Float | Int | ^/2 | Float | Float |
| Float | Float | ^/2 | Float | Float |
- powm(+IntExprBase,
+IntExprExp, +IntExprMod)
- Result = (IntExprBase**IntExprExp)
modulo IntExprMod. Only available when compiled with
unbounded integer support. This formula is required for Diffie-Hellman
key-exchange, a technique where two parties can establish a secret key
over a public network.
IntExprBase and IntExprExp must be non-negative (>=0),
IntExprMod must be positive (>0).130The
underlying GMP mpz_powm() function allows negative values under some
conditions. As the conditions are expensive to pre-compute, error
handling from GMP is non-trivial and negative values are not needed for
Diffie-Hellman key-exchange we do not support these.
- lgamma(+Expr)
- Return the natural logarithm of the absolute value of the Gamma
function.131Some interfaces also
provide the sign of the Gamma function. We cannot do that in an
arithmetic function. Future versions may provide a predicate
lgamma/3 that returns both the value and the sign.
- erf(+Expr)
- Wikipedia: “In
mathematics, the error function (also called the Gauss error function)
is a special function (non-elementary) of sigmoid shape which occurs in
probability, statistics and partial differential equations.''
- erfc(+Expr)
- Wikipedia: “The
complementary error function.''
- [ISO]pi
- Evaluate to the mathematical constant π (3.14159 ... ).
- e
- Evaluate to the mathematical constant e (2.71828 ... ).
- epsilon
- Evaluate to the difference between the float 1.0 and the first larger
floating point number. Deprecated. The function nexttoward/2
provides a better alternative.
- inf
- Evaluate to positive infinity. See section
2.16.1.7 and
section 4.27.2.4. This
value can be negated using -/1.
- nan
- Evaluate to Not a Number. See section
2.16.1.7 and
section 4.27.2.4.
- cputime
- Evaluate to a floating point number expressing the CPU
time (in seconds) used by Prolog up till now. See also statistics/2
and time/1.
- eval(+Expr)
- Evaluate Expr. Although ISO standard dictates that‘A=1+2, B
is
A’works and unifies B to 3, it is widely
felt that source level variables in arithmetic expressions should have
been limited to numbers. In this view the eval function can be used to
evaluate arbitrary expressions.132The eval/1
function was first introduced by ECLiPSe and is under consideration for
YAP.
Bitvector functions
The functions below are not covered by the standard. The
msb/1 function also
appears in hProlog and SICStus Prolog. The getbit/2
function also appears in ECLiPSe, which also provides setbit(Vector,Index)
and clrbit(Vector,Index). The others are SWI-Prolog
extensions that improve handling of ---unbounded--- integers as
bit-vectors.
- msb(+IntExpr)
- Return the largest integer N such that
(IntExpr >> N) /\ 1 =:= 1.
This is the (zero-origin) index of the most significant 1 bit in the
value of IntExpr, which must evaluate to a positive integer.
Errors for 0, negative integers, and non-integers.
- lsb(+IntExpr)
- Return the smallest integer N such that
(IntExpr >> N) /\ 1 =:= 1.
This is the (zero-origin) index of the least significant 1 bit in the
value of IntExpr, which must evaluate to a positive integer.
Errors for 0, negative integers, and non-integers.
- popcount(+IntExpr)
- Return the number of 1s in the binary representation of the non-negative
integer IntExpr.
- getbit(+IntExprV,
+IntExprI)
- Evaluates to the bit value (0 or 1) of the IntExprI-th bit of
IntExprV. Both arguments must evaluate to non-negative
integers. The result is equivalent to
(IntExprV >> IntExprI)/\1,
but more efficient because materialization of the shifted value is
avoided. Future versions will optimise (IntExprV >> IntExprI)/\1
to a call to getbit/2,
providing both portability and performance.133This
issue was fiercely debated at the ISO standard mailinglist. The name getbit
was selected for compatibility with ECLiPSe, the only system providing
this support. Richard O'Keefe disliked the name and argued that
efficient handling of the above implementation is the best choice for
this functionality.