Bridging the Gap between Object-oriented and Logic Programming

A description is given of an interface that was developed between Loops and Xerox Quintus Prolog. Loops is an extension to the Xerox AI environment to support object-oriented programming; Xerox Quintus Prolog is a version of Prolog that runs on Xerox Lisp machines. Such a bridge enables all the support tools of both environments to be accessed, and degradation of performance that occurs when one language is implemented top of another is avoided. The interface has three layers. At the lowest level, a set of Prolog predicates gives the Prolog programmer access to Loops objects. This lowest level is the bridge from Prolog to Loops. At the next level, programming tools in the Loops environment let object methods be defined in Prolog. At the highest level, the Prolog programmer can treat Prolog clauses as Loops objects that can be manipulated outside the Prolog database. Each layer can be used independently