The API is being developed in close cooperation with the XSB and Ciao teams as a pilot for the PIP (Prolog Improvement Proposal) initiative. Janus should become the de-facto standard interface between Python and Prolog.
Python has a huge developer community that maintains a large set of resources, notably interfaces to just about anything one can imagine. Making such interfaces directly available to Prolog can surely be done. However, developing an interface typically requires programming in C or C++, a skill that is not widely available everywhere. Being able to access Python effortlessly from Prolog puts us in a much better position because Python experience is widely available in our target audience. This solution was proposed in Andersen & Swift, 2023, Swift & Andersen, 2023, initially developed for XSB.
Janus provides a bi-directional interface between Prolog and Python
using the low-level C API of both languages. This makes using Python
from Prolog as simple as taking the standard SWI-Prolog distribution and
loading library library(janus). Using Prolog from Python is
as simple as
import janus_swi as janus and start making calls. Both
Prolog and Python being dynamically typed languages, we can define an
easy to use interface that provides a latency of about one μS.
The Python interface is modeled after the recent JavaScript interface developed for the WASM (Web Assembly) version. That is
The API of Janus is the result of discussions between the SWI-Prolog, XSB and Ciao lang teams. It will be reflected in a PIP (Prolog Improvement Proposal). Considering the large differences in design an opinions in Prolog implementation, the PIP does not cover all aspects of the API. Many of the predicates and functions have a Compatibility note that explains the relation of the SWI-Prolog API and the PIP. We summarize the differences in section 12.
The bi-directional conversion between Prolog and Python terms is
summarized in the table below. For compatibility with Prolog
implementations without native dicts we support converting the
{k1:v1, k2:v2, ...} to dicts. Note that {k1:v1, k2:v2}
is syntactic sugar for {}(','(:(k1,v1), :(k2,v2))). We
allow for embedding this in a py(Term) such that, with py
defined as prefix operator, py{k1:v1, k2:v2} is
both valid syntax as SWI-Prolog dict as as ISO Prolog compliant term and
both are translated into the same Python dict. Note that {}
translates to a Python string, while py({}) translates into
an empty Python dict.
By default we translate Python strings into Prolog atoms. Given we
support strings, this is somewhat dubious. There are two reasons for
this choice. One is the pragmatic reason that Python uses strings both
for identifiers and arbitrary text. Ideally we'd have the first
translated to Prolog atoms and the latter to Prolog strings, but,
because we do not know which strings act as identifier and which as just
text, this is not possible. The second is to improve compatibility with
Prolog systems that do not support strings. Note that py_call/3
and py_iter/3
provide the option
py_string_as(string) to obtain a string if this is
desirable.
| Prolog | Python | Notes | |
| Variable | ⟶ | - | (instantiation error) |
| Integer | ⟺ | int | Supports big integers |
| Rational | ⟺ | fractions.Fraction() | |
| Float | ⟺ | float | |
| @(none) | ⟺ | None | |
| @(true) | ⟺ | True | |
| @(false) | ⟺ | False | |
| Atom | ⟵ | enum.Enum() | Name of Enum instance |
| Atom | ⟺ | String | |
| String | ⟶ | String | |
| #(Term) | ⟶ | String | stringify using write_canonical/1 if not atomic |
| prolog(Term) | ⟶ | janus.Term() | Represents any Prolog term |
| Term | ⟵ | janus.Term() | |
| List | ⟶ | List | |
| List | ⟵ | Sequence | |
| List | ⟵ | Iterator | Note that a Python Generator is an Iterator |
| py_set(List) | ⟺ | Set | |
| -() | ⟺ | () | Python empty Tuple |
| -(a,b, ... ) | ⟺ | (a,b, ... ) | Python Tuples. Note that a Prolog pair A-B
maps to a Python (binary) tuple. |
| Dict | ⟺ | Dict | Default for SWI-Prolog |
| {k:v, ...} | ⟺ | Dict | Compatibility
when using py_dict_as( |
| py({}) | ⟵ | {} | Empty
dict when using py_dict_as( |
| {k:v, ...} | ⟶ | Dict | Compatibility (see above) |
| py({k:v, ...}) | ⟶ | Dict | Compatibility (see above) |
| eval(Term) | ⟶ | Object | Evaluate Term as first argument of py_call/2 |
py_obj blob | ⟺ | Object | Used for any Python object not above |
| Compound | ⟶ | - | for any term not above (type error) |
The interface supports unbounded integers and rational numbers. Large integers (> 64 bits) are converted using a hexadecimal string as intermediate. SWI-Prolog rational numbers are mapped to the Python class fractions:Fraction.1Currently, mapping rational numbers to fractions uses a string as intermediate representation and may thus be slow.
The conversion #(Term) allows passing anything as a Python string. If
Term is an atom or string, this is the same as passing the
atom or string. Any other Prolog term is converted as defined by
write_canonical/1.
The conversion prolog(Term) creates an instance of janus.Term().
This class encapsulates a copy of an arbitrary Prolog term. The
SWI-Prolog implementation uses the
PL_record() and PL_recorded() functions to store and
retrieve the term. Term may be any Prolog term, including blobs,
attributed variables. Cycles and subterm sharing in
Term are preserved. Internally, janus.Term()
is used to represent Prolog exeptions that are raised during the
execution of
janus.query_once() or janus.query().
Python Tuples are array-like objects and thus map best to a Prolog
compound term. There are two problems with this. One is that few systems
support compound terms with arity zero, e.g., f and many
systems have a limit on the arity of compound terms. Using
Prolog comma lists, e.g., (a,b,c) does not
implement array semantics, cannot represent empty tuples and cannot
disambiguate tuples with one element from the element itself. We settled
with compound terms using the -
This section introduces Janus calling Python from Prolog with examples.
The spaCy package provides natural language processing. This section illustrates the Janus library using spaCy. Typically, spaCy and the English language models may be installed using
> pip install spacy > python -m spacy download en
After spaCy is installed, we can define model/1 to represent a Python object for the English language model using the code below. Note that by tabling this code as shared, the model is loaded only once and is accessible from multiple Prolog threads.
:- table english/1 as shared.
english(NLP) :-
py_call(spacy:load(en_core_web_sm), NLP).
Calling english(X) results in X =
<py_English>(0x7f703c24f430), a blob that
references a Python object. English is the name of the Python
class to which the object belongs and 0x7f703c24f430 is the
address of the object. The returned object implements the Python
callable protocol, i.e., it behaves as a function with
additional properties and methods. Calling the model with a string
results in a parsed document. We can use this from Prolog using the
built-in __call__ method:
?- english(NLP),
py_call(NLP:'__call__'("This is a sentence."), Doc).
NLP = <py_English>(0x7f703851b8e0),
Doc = [<py_Token>(0x7f70375be9d0), <py_Token>(0x7f70375be930),
<py_Token>(0x7f70387f8860), <py_Token>(0x7f70376dde40),
<py_Token>(0x7f70376de200)
].
This is not what we want. Because the spaCy Doc class
implements the sequence protocol it is translated into a Prolog
list of spaCy Token instances. The Doc class
implements many more methods that we may wish to use. An example is
noun_chunks, which provides a Python generator
that enumerates the noun chunks found in the input. Each chunk is an
instance of Span, a sequence of Token
instances that have the property text. The program below
extracts the noun chunks of the input as a non-deterministic Prolog
predicate. Note that we use py_object(true) to get the
parsed document as a Python object. Next, we use py_iter/2
to access the members of the Python iterator returned by Doc.noun_chunks
as Python object references and finally we extract the text of each noun
chunk as an atom. The SWI-Prolog (atom) garbage collector will take care
of the Doc and Span Python objects. Immediate
release of these objects can be enforced using py_free/1.2Janus
implementations are not required to implement Python object reference
garbage collection.
:- use_module(library(janus)).
:- table english/1.
english(NLP) :-
py_call(spacy:load(en_core_web_sm),NLP).
noun(Sentence, Noun) :-
english(NLP),
py_call(NLP:'__call__'(Sentence), Doc, [py_object(true)]),
py_iter(Doc:noun_chunks, Span, [py_object]),
py_call(Span:text, Noun).
After which we can call
?- noun("This is a sentence.", Noun).
Noun = 'This' ;
Noun = 'a sentence'.
The subsequent section 4 documents
the Prolog library
library(janus).
This library implements calling Python from Prolog. It is available
directly from Prolog if the janus package is bundled. The library
provides access to an embedded Python instance. If SWI-Prolog is
embedded into Python using the Python package janus-swi,
this library is provided either from Prolog or from the Python package.
Normally, the Prolog user can simply start calling Python using py_call/2 or friends. In special cases it may be needed to initialize Python with options using py_initialize/3 and optionally the Python search path may be extended using py_add_lib_dir/1.
sys.version.
If a Python virtual environment (venv) is active, indicate this
with the location of this environment found.
Arguments to Python functions use the Python conventions. Both
positional and keyword arguments are supported. Keyword
arguments are written as Name = Value and must appear after
the positional arguments.
Below are some examples.
% call a built-in
?- py_call(print("Hello World!\n")).
true.
% call a built-in (alternative)
?- py_call(builtins:print("Hello World!\n")).
true.
% call function in a module
?- py_call(sys:getsizeof([1,2,3]), Size).
Size = 80.
% call function on an attribute of a module
?- py_call(sys:path:append("/home/bob/janus")).
true
% get attribute from a module
?- py_call(sys:path, Path)
Path = ["dir1", "dir2", ...]
Given a class in a file dog.py such as the following
example from the Python documentation
class Dog:
tricks = []
def __init__(self, name):
self.name = name
def add_trick(self, trick):
self.tricks.append(trick)
We can interact with this class as below. Note that $Doc
in the SWI-Prolog toplevel refers to the last toplevel binding for the
variable Dog.
?- py_call(dog:'Dog'("Fido"), Dog).
Dog = <py_Dog>(0x7f095c9d02e0).
?- py_call($Dog:add_trick("roll_over")).
Dog = <py_Dog>(0x7f095c9d02e0).
?- py_call($Dog:tricks, Tricks).
Dog = <py_Dog>(0x7f095c9d02e0),
Tricks = ["roll_over"]
If the principal term of the first argument is not Target:Func,
The argument is evaluated as the initial target, i.e., it must be an
object reference or a module. For example:
?- py_call(dog:'Dog'("Fido"), Dog),
py_call(Dog, X).
Dog = X, X = <py_Dog>(0x7fa8cbd12050).
?- py_call(sys, S).
S = <py_module>(0x7fa8cd582390).
Options processed:
true (default false), translate the return
as a Python object reference. Some objects are always translated
to Prolog, regardless of this flag. These are the Python constants
None, True and False as well as
instances of the Python base classes int, float, str
or tuple. Instances of sub classes of these base classes
are controlled by this option.atom (default), translate a Python
String into a Prolog atom. If Type is string,
translate into a Prolog string. Strings are more efficient if they are
short lived.dict (default) to map a Python dict to a SWI-Prolog
dict if all keys can be represented. If {} or not all keys
can be represented, Return is unified to a term {k:v, ...}
or py({}) if the Python dict is empty.py_string_as and py_dict_as
are SWI-Prolog specific, where SWI-Prolog Janus represents Python
strings as atoms as required by the PIP and it represents Python dicts
by default as SWI-Prolog dicts. The predicates values/3,
keys/2, etc. provide portable access
to the data in the dict.
Obj:Attr = Value
construct is not accepted.__iter__ on the result to get the iterator itself.__next__ function of the iterator.
The example below uses the built-in iterator range():
?- py_iter(range(1,3), X). X = 1 ; X = 2.
Note that the implementation performs a look ahead, i.e., after successful unification it calls‘__next__()` again. On failure the Prolog predicate succeeds deterministically. On success, the next candidate is stored.
Note that a Python generator is a Python iterator.
Therefore, given the Python generator expression below, we can use
py_iter(squares(1,5),X) to generate the squares on
backtracking.
def squares(start, stop):
for i in range(start, stop):
yield i * i
| Options | is processed as with py_call/3. |
query(), i.e.,
it is not possible to iterate over a Python iterator that under the
hoods relies on a Prolog non-deterministic predicate.
py_setattr(Target, Name, Value) :-
py_call(Target, Obj, [py_object(true)]),
py_call(setattr(Obj, Name, Value)).
existence_error(py_object, Term) is raised of Term
is a Python object, but it has been freed using py_free/1.{k:v,...}
representation. See py_dict_as option of
py_call/2.existence_error.
Note that by decrementing the reference count, we make the reference
invalid from Prolog. This may not actually delete the object because the
object may have references inside Python.
Prolog references to Python objects are subject to atom garbage collection and thus normally do not need to be freed explicitly.
once(Goal) while holding the Phyton
GIL (Global Interpreter Lock). Note that all predicates that
interact with Python lock the GIL. This predicate is only required if we
wish to make multiple calls to Python while keeping the GIL. The GIL is
a
recursive lock and thus calling py_call/1,2
while holding the GIL does not deadlock.Note that this predicate returns the Prolog threads that locked the GIL. It is however possible that Python releases the GIL, for example if it performs a blocking call. In this scenario, some other thread or no thread may hold the gil.
py_call(Module:Function, Return).
See py_call/2 for details.
py_call(ObjRef:MethAttr, Return).
See py_call/2 for details.
| Module | is ignored (why do we need that if we have ObjRef?) |
janus as below.
from janus import *
So, we can do
?- py_shell.
...
>>> query_once("writeln(X)", {"X":"Hello world"})
Hello world
{'truth': True}
If possible, we enable command line editing using the GNU readline library.
When used in an environment where Prolog does not use the file
handles 0,1,2 for the standard streams, e.g., in swipl-win,
Python's I/O is rebound to use Prolog's I/O. This includes Prolog's
command line editor, resulting in a mixed history of Prolog and Pythin
commands.
pformat() from the Python
module
pprint to do the actual formatting. Options is
translated into keyword arguments passed to pprint.pformat().
In addition, the option nl(Bool) is processed. When true
(default), we use pprint.pp(), which makes the output
followed by a newline. For example:
?- py_pp(py{a:1, l:[1,2,3], size:1000000},
[underscore_numbers(true)]).
{'a': 1, 'l': [1, 2, 3], 'size': 1_000_000}
type(ObjRef).__name__ in Python.
isinstance(ObjRef)
in Python.
| Type | is either a term Module:Type
or a plain atom to refer to a built-in type. |
hasattr(). If Name is
unbound, this enumerates the members of py_object_dir/2.
| ModuleOrObj | If this is an atom it refers to a module, otherwise it must be a Python object reference. |
string quasi
quotation that supports long strings in SWI-Prolog. For example:
:- use_module(library(strings)).
:- py_module(hello,
{|string||
| def say_hello_to(s):
| print(f"hello {s}")
|}).
Calling this predicate multiple times with the same Module and Source is a no-op. Called with a different source creates a new Python module that replaces the old in the global namespace.
python_error(Type, Data) is raised if Python raises an
error.Calling this predicate while the Python is already initialized is a no-op. This predicate is thread-safe, where the first call initializes Python.
In addition to initializing the Python system, it
janus.py to the Python
module search path.| Options | is currently ignored. It will be used to provide additional configuration options. |
first or last. py_add_lib_dir/1
adds the directory as last. The property sys:path
is not modified if it already contains Dir.
Dir is in Prolog notation. The added directory is converted to an absolute path using the OS notation using prolog_to_os_filename/2.
If Dir is a relative path, it is taken relative to Prolog source file when used as a directive and relative to the process working directory when called as a predicate.
If py_call/2 or one of the other predicates that access Python causes Python to raise an exception, this exception is translated into a Prolog exception of the shape below. The library defines a rule for print_message/2 to render these errors in a human readable way.
error(python_error(ErrorType, Value), _)
Here, ErrorType is the name of the error type, as an atom,
e.g.,
’TypeError'. Value is the exception object
represented by a Python object reference. The library(janus)
defines the message formatting, which makes us end up with a message
like below.
?- py_call(nomodule:noattr). ERROR: Python 'ModuleNotFoundError': ERROR: No module named 'nomodule' ERROR: In: ERROR: [10] janus:py_call(nomodule:noattr)
The Python stack trace is handed embedded into the second
argument of the error(Formal, ImplementationDefined). If an
exception is printed, printing the Python backtrace, is controlled by
the Prolog flags py_backtrace (default true)
and
py_backtrace_depth (default 4).
Errors may occur when converting Prolog terms to Python objects as
defined in section 2. These errors are
reported as
instantiation_error, type_error(Type, Culprit)
or
domain_error(Domain, Culprit).
Defined domains are:
@(Constant), Constant is not true,
false or none. For example, py_call(print(@error)).py_call(m:f(1,x=2,3), R)py_string_as(As) option is invalid. For
example, py_call(m:f(), R, [py_string_as(codes)])py_dict_as(As) option is invalid. For
example, py_call(m:f(), R, [py_dict_as(list)])py_call(m:f(point(1,2), R).Defined types are:
py_free(42)fraction instance is converted to a Prolog
rational number, but the textual conversion does not produce a valid
rational number. This can happen if the Python fraction is
subclassed and the __str__() method does not produce a
correct string.{k:v, ...} representation for a dictionary we find
a term that is not a key-value pair. For example,
py_call(m:f({a:1, x}), R)py_set(Elements), Elements is not a
list. For example, py_call(m:f(py_set(42), R).py_call(Target:FuncOrAttrOrMethod), Target is
not a module (atom) or Python object reference. For example, py_call(7:f(),
R).py_call(Target:FuncOrAttrOrMethod), FuncOrAttrOrMethod
is not an atom or compound. For example, py_call(m:7, R).
An embedded Python system does not automatically pick up Python
virtual environments. It is supposed to setup its own environment. Janus
is sensitive to Python venv environments. Running under such as
environment is assumed if the environment variable
VIRTUAL_ENV points at a directory that holds a file
pyvenv.cfg. If the virtual environment is detected, the
actions in the list below are taken.3This
is based on observing how Python 3.10 on Linux responds to being used
inside a virtual environment. We do not know whether this covers all
platforms and versions.
-I flag to indicate
isolation.sys.prefix to the value of the VIRTUAL_ENV
environment variable.site-packages or
dist-packages from sys.path.4Note
that -I only removes the personal packages directory, while
the Python executable removes all, so we do the same.$VIRTUAL_ENV/lib/pythonX.Y/site-packages to
sys.path, where X and Y are the major
and minor version numbers of the embedded Python library. If this
directory does not exist we print a diagnostic warning.
The Janus interface can also call Prolog from Python. Calling Prolog
from Python is the basis when embedding Prolog into Python using the
Python package janus_swi. However, calling Prolog from
Python is also used to handle call backs. Mutually recursive
calls between Python and Prolog are supported. They should be handled
with some care as it is easy to crash the process due to a stack
overflow.
Loading janus into Python is realized using the Python package
janus-swi, which defines the module janus_swi.
We do not call this simply janus to allow coexistence of
Janus for multiple Prolog implementations. Unless you plan to interact
with multiple Prolog systems in the same session, we advice to import
janus for SWI-Prolog as below.
import janus_swi as janus
If Python is embedded into SWI-Prolog, the Python module may be
imported both as janus and janus_swi. Using
janus allows the same Python code to be used from different
Prolog systems, while using janus_swi allows the same code
to be used both for embedding Python into Prolog and Prolog into Python.
In the remainder of this section we assume the Janus functions are
available in the name space janus.
The Python module janus provides utility functions and
defines the classes janus.query(), janus.apply(),
janus.Term(), janus.Undefined()
and
janus.PrologError().
The Python calling Prolog interface consist of four primitives, distinguishing deterministic vs. non-deterministic Prolog queries and two different calling conventions which we name functional notation and relational notation. The relational calling convention specifies a Prolog query as a string with an input dict that provides (input) bindings for part of the variables in the query string. The results are represented as a dict that holds the bindings of the output variables and the truth value (see section 5.4). For example:
>>> janus.query_once("Y is sqrt(X)", {'X':2})
{'truth': True, 'Y': 1.4142135623730951}
The functional notation calling convention specifies the query as a module, predicate name and input arguments. It calls the predicate with one argument more than the number of input arguments and translates the binding of the output argument to Python. For example
>>> janus.apply_once("user", "plus", 1, 2)
3
The table below summarizes the four primitives.
| Relational notation | Functional notation | |
| det | janus.query_once() | janus.apply_once() |
| nondet | janus.query() | janus.apply() |
We start our discussion by introducing the janus.query_once(query,inputs) function for calling Prolog goals as once/1. A Prolog goal is constructed from a string and a dict with input bindings and returns output bindings as a dict. For example
>>> import janus_swi as janus
>>> janus.query_once("Y is X+1", {"X":1})
{'Y': 2, 'truth': True}
Note that the input argument may also be passed literally. Below we give two examples. We strongly advise against using string interpolation for three reasons. Firstly, the query strings are compiled and cached on the Prolog sided and (thus) we assume a finite number of distinct query strings. Secondly, string interpolation is sensitive to injection attacks. Notably inserting quoted strings can easily be misused to create malicious queries. Thirdly and finally, serializing and deserializing the data is generally slower then using the input dictionary, especially if the data is large. Using a dict for input and output together with a (short) string to denote the goal is easy to use and fast.
>>> janus.query_once("Y is 1+1", {}) # Ok for "static" queries
{'Y': 2, 'truth': True}
>>> x = 1
>>> janus.query_once(f"Y is {x}+1", {}) # WRONG, See above
{'Y': 2, 'truth': True}
The output dict contains all named Prolog variables that (1) are not in the input dict and (2) do not start with an underscore. For example, to get the grandparents of a person given parent/2 relations we can use the code below, where the _GP and _P do not appear in the output dict. This both saves time and avoids the need to convert Prolog data structures that cannot be represented in Python such as variables or arbitrary compound terms.
>>> janus.query_once("findall(_GP, parent(Me, _P), parent(_P, _GP), GPs)",
{'Me':'Jan'})["GPs"]
[ 'Kees', 'Jan' ]
In addition to the variable bindings the dict contains a key
truth5Note that
variable bindings always start with an uppercase latter.
that represents the truth value of evaluating the query. In normal
Prolog this is a Python Boolean. In systems that implement Well
Founded Semantics, this may also be an instance of the class janus.Undefined().
See
section 5.4 for details. If
evaluation of the query failed, all variable bindings are bound to the
Python constant None and the truth key has the
value False. The following Python function returns True
if the Prolog system supports unbounded integers and False
otherwise.
def hasBigIntegers():
janus.query_once("current_prolog_flag(bounded,false)")['truth']
While janus.query_once()
deals with semi-deterministic goals, the class janus.query()
implements a Python
iterator that iterates over the solutions of a Prolog goal. The
iterator may be aborted using the Python break statement.
As with janus.query_once(),
the returned dict contains a truth field. This field cannot
be False though and thus is either True or an
instance of the class
janus.Undefined()
import janus_swi as janus
def printRange(from, to):
for d in janus.query("between(F,T,X)", {"F":from, "T":to})
print(d["X"])
Iterators may be nested. For example, we can create a list of tuples like below.
def double_iter(w,h):
tuples=[]
for yd in janus.query("between(1,M,Y)", {"M":h}):
for xd in janus.query("between(1,M,X)", {"M":w}):
tuples.append((xd['X'],yd['Y']))
return tuples
After this, we may run
>>> demo.double_iter(2,3) [(1, 1), (2, 1), (1, 2), (2, 2), (1, 3), (2, 3)]
In addition to the iterator protocol that class janus.query() implements, it also implements the methods janus.query.next() and janus.query.close(). This allows for e.g.
q = query("between(1,3,X)")
while ( s := q.next() ):
print(s['X'])
q.close()
But, iterators based on Prolog goals are fragile. This is because, while it is possible to open and run a new query while there is an open query, the inner query must be closed before we can ask for the next solution of the outer query. We illustrate this using the sequence below.
>>> q1 = query("between(1,3,X)")
>>> q2 = query("between(1,3,X)")
>>> q2.next()
{'truth': True, 'X': 1}
>>> q1.next()
Traceback (most recent call last):
...
swipl.Error: swipl.next_solution(): not inner query
>>> q2.close()
>>> q1.next()
{'truth': True, 'X': 1}
>>> q1.close()
Failure to close a query typically leaves SWI-Prolog in an inconsistent state and further interaction with Prolog is likely to crash the process. Future versions may improve on that.
True, such
changes are preserved.
>>> query_once("b_setval(a, 1)", keep=True)
{'truth': 'True'}
>>> query_once("b_getval(a, X)")
{'truth': 'True', 'X': 1}
If query fails, the variables of the query are bound to
the Python constant None. The bindings object
includes a key
truth6As this name is
not a valid Prolog variable name, this cannot be ambiguous.
that has the value False (query failed, all bindings are None), True
(query succeeded, variables are bound to the result converting Prolog
data to Python) or an instance of the class janus.Undefined().
The information carried by this instance is determined by the truth
parameter. Below is an example. See section
5.4 for details.
>>> import janus_swi as janus
>>> janus.query_once("undefined")
{'truth': Undefined}
See also janus.cmd() and janus.apply_once(), which provide a fast but more limited alternative for making ground queries (janus.cmd()) or queries with leading ground arguments followed by a single output variable.
module:predicate(Input ... , Output),
where
Input are the Python input arguments converted to
Prolog. On success, Output is converted to Python and
returned. On failure a janus.PrologError()
exception is raised unless the fail parameter is specified.
In the latter case the function returns obj. This interface
provides a comfortable and fast calling convention for calling a simple
predicate with suitable calling conventions. The example below returns
the home directory of the SWI-Prolog installation.
>>> import janus_swi as janus
>>> janus.apply_once("user", "current_prolog_flag", "home")
'/home/janw/src/swipl-devel/build.pdf/home'
truth key in janus.query_once().
For example:
>>> import janus_swi as janus
>>> cmd("user", "true")
True
>>> cmd("user", "current_prolog_flag", "bounded", "true")
False
>>> cmd("user", "undefined")
Undefined
>>> cmd("user", "no_such_predicate")
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/lib/python3.10/code.py", line 90, in runcode
exec(code, self.locals)
File "<console>", line 1, in <module>
janus.PrologError: '$c_call_prolog'/0: Unknown procedure: no_such_predicate/0
The function janus.query_once() is more flexible and provides all functionality of janus.cmd(). However, this function is faster and in some scenarios easier to use.
None and the text is read from file. If data
is a string, it provides the Prolog text that is loaded and file
is used as identifier for source locations and error messages.
The module argument denotes the target module. That is where
the clauses are added to if the Prolog text does not define a module or
where the exported predicates of the module are imported into.
If data is not provided and file is not accessible this raises a Prolog exception. Errors that occur during the compilation are printed using print_message/2 and can currently not be captured easily. The script below prints the train connections as a list of Python tuples.
import janus_swi as janus
janus.consult("trains", """
train('Amsterdam', 'Haarlem').
train('Amsterdam', 'Schiphol').
""")
print([d['Tuple'] for d in
janus.query("train(_From,_To),Tuple=_From-_To")])
data and module keyword arguments are
SWI-Prolog extensions.
Class janus.query() is similar to the janus.query_once() function, but it returns a Python iterator that allows for iterating over the answers to a non-deterministic Prolog predicate.
truth False.
See discussion above.
keep is a SWI-Prolog extension.|None janus.query.next()query as an iterator is to be preferred. See discussion
above.
Class janus.apply() is similar to janus.apply_once(), calling a Prolog predicate using functional notation style. It returns a Python iterator that enumerates all answers.
>>> [*janus.apply("user", "between", 1, 6)]
[1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]
|None janus.apply.next()apply as an iterator is to be preferred. See discussion
above. Note that this calling convention cannot distinguish between the
Prolog predicate returning @none and reaching the end of
the iteration.
Python provides access to dictionaries holding the local variables of
a function using locals() as well as the global variables stored
as attributes to the module to which the function belongs as
globals(). The Python C API provides
PyEval_GetLocals() and PyEval_GetGlobals(), but these
return the scope of the Janus API function rather than user code, i.e.,
the global variables of the janus module and the local
variables of the running Janus interface function.
Python code that wishes Prolog to access its scope must pass the necessary scope elements (local and global variables) explicitly to the Prolog code. It is possible to pass the entire local and or global scope by the output of locals() and/or globals(). Note however that a dict passed to Prolog is translated to its Prolog representation. This representation may be prohibitively large and does not allow Prolog to modify variables in the scope. Note that Prolog can access the global scope of a module as attributes of this module, e.g.
increment :-
py_call(demo:counter, V0),
V is V0+1,
py_setattr(demo, counter, V).
In traditional Prolog, queries succeed or fail. Systems that implement tabling with Well Founded Semantics such as XSB and SWI-Prolog define a third truth value typically called undefined. Undefined results may have two reasons; (1) the program is logically inconsistent or (2) restraints have been applied in the derivation.
Because classical Prolog truth is dominant, we represent the success
of a query using the Python booleans True and False.
For undefined answers we define a class janus.Undefined()
that may represent different levels of detail on why the result is
undefined. The notion of generic undefined is represented by a
unique instance of this class. The three truth values are accessible as
properties of the janus module.
TrueFalse
The class janus.Undefined() represents an undefined result under the Well Founded Semantics.
The class has a single property class term that
represents either the delay list or the residual program.
See
janus.TruthVal() for
details.
True. This is quite
pointless in the current design and this may go.janus.undefined, a unique
instance of the class janus.Undefined().
The instances of this enumeration are available as attributed of the janus
module.
For example, given Russel's paradox defined in Prolog as below.
:- module(russel, [shaves/2]). :- table shaves/2. shaves(barber,P) :- person(P), tnot(shaves(P,P)). person(barber). person(mayor).
From Python, we may ask who shaves the barber in four ways as
illustrated below. Note that the Prolog representations for
janus.DELAY_LISTS and janus.RESIDUAL_PROGRAM
use the write_canonical/1
notation. They may later be changed to use a more human friendly
notation.
# Using NO_TRUTHVALS
>>> janus.query_once("russel:shaves(barber, X)", truth_vals=janus.NO_TRUTHVALS)
{'truth': True, 'X': 'barber'}
# Using default PLAIN_TRUTHVALS (default)
>>> janus.query_once("russel:shaves(barber, X)")
{'truth': Undefined, 'X': 'barber'}
# Using default DELAY_LISTS
>>> janus.query_once("russel:shaves(barber, X)", truth_vals=janus.DELAY_LISTS)
{'truth': :(russel,shaves(barber,barber)), 'X': 'barber'}
# Using default RESIDUAL_PROGRAM
>>> janus.query_once("russel:shaves(barber, X)", truth_vals=janus.RESIDUAL_PROGRAM)
{'truth': [:-(:(russel,shaves(barber,barber)),tnot(:(russel,shaves(barber,barber))))], 'X': 'barber'}
Class janus.Term() encapsulates a Prolog term. Similarly to the Python object reference (see py_is_object/1), the class allows Python to represent arbitrary Prolog data, typically with the intend to pass it back to Prolog.
prolog(Term) to the data
conversion process. As a result, we can do
?- py_call(janus:echo(prolog(hello(world))), Obj,
[py_object(true)]).
Obj = <py_Term>(0x7f7a14512050).
?- py_call(print($Obj)).
hello(world)
Obj = <py_Term>(0x7f7a14512050).
Class janus.PrologError(), derived from the Python class Exception represents a Prolog exception that typically results from calling janus.query_once(), janus.apply_once(), janus.query() or janus.apply(). The class either encapsulates a string on a Prolog exception term using janus.Term. Prolog exceptions are used to represent errors raised by Prolog. Strings are used to represent errors from invalid use of the interface. The default behavior gives the expected message:
>>> x = janus.query_once("X is 3.14/0")['X']
Traceback (most recent call last):
...
janus.PrologError: //2: Arithmetic: evaluation error: `zero_divisor'
At this moment we only define a single Python class for representing Prolog exceptions. This suffices for error reporting, but does not make it easy to distinguish different Prolog errors. Future versions may improve on that by either subclassing janus.PrologError or provide a method to classify the error more easily.
Where SWI-Prolog support native preemptively scheduled threads that exploit multiple cores, Python has a single interpreter that can switch between native threads.7Actually, you can create multiple Python interpreters. It is not yet clear to us whether that can help improving on concurrency. Initially the Python interpreter is associated with the thread that created it which, for janus, is the first thread calling Python. The Prolog thread that initiated Janus may terminate. This does not affect the embedded Python interpreter and this interpreter may continue to be used from other Prolog threads.
Janus ensures it holds the Python GIL when interacting with the
Python interpreter. If Python calls Prolog, the GIL is released using
Py_BEGIN_ALLOW_THREADS.
Prolog may be called safely from any Python thread. The Prolog
execution is embraced with Py_BEGIN_ALLOW_THREADS and
Py_END_ALLOW_THREADS, which implies that Python is allowed
to switch to another thread while Prolog is doing its work.
If the calling Python thread is not the one that initiated Janus, janus.query_once() and janus.query() attach and detach a temporary Prolog engine using PL_thread_attach_engine() and PL_thread_destroy_engine(). This is relatively costly. In addition we allow associating a Prolog engine persistently with the calling thread.
NULL to PL_thread_attach_engine().
Future versions may provide access to the creation attributes.
If the thread already has an engine the attach count is incremented and the current engine id is returned. The engine is detached after a matching number of calls to janus.detach_engine()
In a threaded environment, Python calls must be guarded by PyGILState_Ensure() and PyGILState_Release() that ultimately lock/unlock a mutex. Unfortunately there is no PyGILState_TryEnsure() and therefore we may create deadlocks when Prolog locks are involved. This may either apply to explicit Prolog locks from with_mutex/2 and friends or implicit locks on e.g. I/O streams. The classical scenario is thread A holding the Python GIL and wanting to call Prolog code that locks a mutex M, while thread B holds M and wishes to make a Python call and this tries to lock the GIL. The predicate py_gil_owner/1 can be used to help diagnosing such issues.
The current version as an integer can be accessed as
janus.version. The integer uses the same conventions as the
SWI-Prolog flag version and is defined as 10,000*Major
+ 100*Minor + Patch. In addition, the module defines the following
functions:
The Janus
GIT repo provides setup.py. Janus may be installed as a
Python package after downloading using
pip install .
pip allows for installation from the git repository in a one-liner as below.
pip install git+https://github.com/SWI-Prolog/packages-swipy.git#egg=janus_swi
Installing janus as a Python package requires
setup.py runs swipl --dump-runtime-variables
to obtain the installation locations of the various Prolog components.
On Windows, if swipl is not on %PATH%, setup.py
tries the registry to find the default binary installation.After successful installation we should be able to use Prolog directly from Python. For example:
python
>>> from janus_swi import *
>>> query_once("writeln('Hello world!')")
Hello world!
{'truth': True}
>>> [a["D"] for a in query("between(1,6,D)")]
[1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]
>>> prolog()
?- version.
Welcome to SWI-Prolog (threaded, 64 bits, version 9.1.12-8-g70b70a968-DIRTY)
SWI-Prolog comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY. This is free software.
...
?-
Prolog is a very different language than imperative languages. An interesting similarity is the notion of backtracking vs. Python iterators.
To be extended.
Below is a table to give some feeling on the overhead of making calls between Prolog and Python. These figures are roughly the same as the figures for the XSB/Python interface. All benchmarks have been executed on AMD3950X running Ubuntu 22.04, SWI-Prolog 9.1.11 and Python 3.10.6.
| Action | Time (seconds) |
| Echo list with 1,000,000 elements | 0.12 |
Call Pyton demo:int() from Prolog 1,000,000 times | 0.44 |
Call Pyton demo:sumlist3(5,[1,2,3]) from Prolog
1,000,000 times | 1.4 |
Call Prolog Y is X+1 from Python 1,000,000 times | 1.9 |
Iterate from Python over Prolog goal between(1, 1 000 000,
X) | 1.1 |
Iterate over Python iterator range(1,1000000) from
Prolog | 0.17 |
Using Python as an intermediate to access external resources allows writing such interfaces with less effort by a much wider community. The resulting interface is often also more robust due to well defined data conversion and sound memory management that you get for free.
Nevertheless, Python often accesses resources with a C or C++ API. We can also create this bridge directly, bypassing Python. That avoids one layer of data conversion and preserves the excellent multi-threading capabilities of SWI-Prolog. As is, Python operations are synchronized using the Python GIL, a global lock that allows for only a single thread to use Python at the same time.9There are rumors that Python's multi threading will be able to use multiple cores.
Writing an interface for SWI-Prolog is typically easier that for
Python/C because memory management is easier. Where we need to manage
reference counts to Python objects through all possibly paths of the C
functions, SWI-Prolog term_t merely has to be allocated
once in the function. All failure parts will discard the Prolog data
automatically through backtracking and all success paths will do so
through the Prolog garbage collector.10Using
a Python C++ interface such as pybind11
simplifies memory management for a Python interface.
Summarizing, Janus is ideal to get started quickly. Applications that need to access C/C++ resources and need either exploit all cores of your hardware or get the best performance on calls or exchanging data should consider using the C or C++ interfaces of SWI-Prolog.
Janus relies on the C APIs of Prolog and Python and functions therefore independent from the platform. While the C, Python and Prolog code the builds Janus is platform independent, dynamically loading Prolog into Python or Python into Prolog depends on versions as well as several properties of the dynamic linking performed by the platform. In the sections below we describe some of the issues.
We tested the Windows platform using SWI-Prolog binaries from
https://www.swi-prolog.org/Downloads.html
and Python downloaded from
https://www.python.org/downloads/windows/.
The SWI-Prolog binary provides janus.dll which is linked to
python3.dll, a “stable API'' based wrapper that each
Python 3 binary distribution provides in addition to python3xx.dll.
Calling Python from Prolog is supported out of the box, provided the
folder holding
python3.dll is in the search %PATH%.
The Python package can be installed using pip as described in
section 7. Once built, this package
finds SWI-Prolog on %PATH% or using the registry and should
be fairly independent from the Prolog version as long as it is version
9.1.12 or later.
On Linux systems we bind to the currently installed Prolog and Python version. This should work smoothly from source. Janus is included in the PPA distribution for Ubuntu as well as in the Docker images. It is currently not part of the SNAP distribution.
See section 7 for for building the janus_swi
Python package.
Unfortunately MacOS versions of Python do not ship with the
equivalent of python3.dll found on Windows. This implies we
can only compile our binaries against a specific version of Python. We
will use the default Python binary for that, which is installed in
/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/
The Macports version is also linked against an explicit version of Python, in this case provided by Macports.
The Python package janus_swi may be compiled against any
version of Python selected by pip. See section
7 for details.
We aim to provide an interface that is close enough to allow developing Prolog code that uses Python and visa versa. Differences between the two Prolog implementation make this non-trivial. SWI-Prolog has native support for dicts, strings, unbounded integers, rational numbers and blobs that provide safe pointers to external objects that are subject to (atom) garbage collection.
We try to find a compromise to make the data conversion as close as
possible while supporting both systems as good as possible. For this
reason we support creating a Python dict both from a SWI-Prolog dict and
from the Prolog term py({k1:v1, k2:v2, ...}). With
py defined as a prefix operator, this may be written
without parenthesis and is thus equivalent to the SWI-Prolog dict
syntax. The library(janus) library provides access
predicates that are supported by both systems and where the SWI-Prolog
version supports both SWI-Prolog dicts and the above Prolog
representation. See
items/2, values/3, key/2
and items/2.
Calling Python from Prolog provides a low-level and a more high level interface. The high level interface is realized by py_call/[2,3] and py_iter/[2,3]. We realize the low level interfaces py_func/[3,4] and py_dot/[4,5] on top of py_call/2. The interface for calling Prolog from Python is settled on the five primitives described in section 5.
We are discussing to minimize the differences. Below we summarize the known differences.
py() wrapper is optional. The
predicate py_is_dict/1
may be used to test that a Prolog term represents a Python dict. The
predicates values/3, keys/2, key/2
and items/2
can be used to access either representation.prolog(Term) to be sent to
Python, creating an instance of janus.Term().janus.undefined
are supported in a portable way. Delay lists, providing details
on why the result is undefined, are represented differently.
This section will be written after the dust has settled. Topics
The current version of this Janus library must be considered beta code.