PLOGHELP COMMANDS                               Simon Nichols, July 1990

Commands provide a convenient method of accessing features of the Poplog
environment from Prolog. A command is recognised by the Prolog compiler
whenever a special command name occurs as the first word of a clause or
top-level goal.

Command names are ordinary atoms. The following commands are defined as
standard:

    ved                             for entering the editor

    help ref teach                  for accessing documentation

    im                              for entering immediate mode

    showlib                         for accessing library files

    source                          for editing a predicate definition

    pop11                           for switching language to pop11

    cd                              for changing directory

    pwd                             for displaying the current directory

    bye                             for exiting Prolog

Most of these can take an optional argument, as follows:

    ved im showlib                  a filename

    help ref teach                  a documentation topic

    source                          a predicate name

    cd                              a directory pathname

If a filename, documentation topic or predicate name argument is
omitted, the argument given to the previous use of the command will be
resupplied. If the directory name argument to cd is omitted, the working
directory will be changed to the home (login) directory.

An argument is simply a sequence of characters terminated by a newline.
The argument must appear on the same line as the command name, separated
from it by white space. Directory and filename paths should have
whatever form is required by the host operating system (UNIX or VMS).

Command names are only recognised specially when occurring as the first
word in a clause or goal. Otherwise, they can be freely used as atoms in
terms. Thus,

    ?- ved

will invoke the editor, whereas

    ?- X = ved.

will merely elicit the response

    X = ved ?

If you want to abolish a command for any reason, use the evaluable
predicate prolog_abolish_command/1. For example, if you wanted to get
rid of the help command, run the following goal:

    ?- prolog_abolish_command(help).


Defining New Commands
---------------------
Prolog commands are implemented by means of a Pop-11 property table
prolog_command which maps each command name to the procedure which
implements that command -- the command procedure. So, defining a new
command involves the following operation:

    <procedure> -> prolog_command(<word>);

where <word> is a Pop-11 word (Prolog atom) representing the command
name. For example, the command pwd could be defined as follows:

    procedure(); printf(current_directory, '%P\n') endprocedure
        -> prolog_command("pwd");

The command procedure may be a procedure of one argument, in which case
the remainder of the input line following the command name is passed as
a Pop-11 string to the procedure. For example, the command cd could be
defined as below:

    procedure(dir); lvars dir; dir -> current_directory; endprocedure
        -> prolog_command("cd");

When the command

    ?- cd foo

is given from Prolog, the formal argument dir of the command procedure
is bound to the Pop-11 string 'foo'. Note that if a command argument
includes spaces, these are elided. Thus, the (nonsensical) command

    ?- cd foo baz

will result in the formal argument dir of the command procedure being
bound to 'foobaz'.

Since the entire input line after the command name becomes the command
argument, it makes no sense to define a command procedure which expects
more than one argument.

See HELP * PROPERTIES for information about Pop-11 property tables.


--- C.all/plog/help/commands
--- Copyright University of Sussex 1993. All rights reserved.