JSUnify

JSUnify is a declarative JavaScript DSL(domain specific language) for logic programming. JSUnify consists of three major components

• A backward chaining rule engine.
• A powerful unification engine.
• A compiler that compiles JSUnify to JavaScript.

JSUnify is very different then JavaScript. If you have ever used Prolog or another logic programming language then the concepts in JSUnify should be simple to grasp. If not then this readme will introduce you to a new programming paradigm.

Status of JSUnify

JSUnify is under active development and is currently in beta and should not be used in production yet. That being said I would love any feedback or suggestions about the language or this readme.

Features left to implement

• Tail call optimization
• A standard library
• Library loading
• Or operator in rules

Why use JSUnify?

JSUnify is very good at some tasks. AI, symbolic math, and expert systems are all excellent uses for JSUnify. These tasks are not easy to achieve in an imperative language such as JavaScript. JSUnify is not good at IO, DOM manipulation, or really anything easily done easily in an imperative language like JavaScript. That is why JSUnify is a DSL (domain specific language) you can you JSUnify where it makes sense and JavaScript every where else.

Fact, Rules and Queries

JSUnify programs consist of three main components, facts, rules, and queries. Facts and rules are combined in order to make a knowlage base. You use a JSUnify program by querying a knowlage base.

Example 1

This first knowledge base is simply a collection of facts.

var knowlagebase = $jsunify(function(){
	woman("sue"); //This is fact 1
	man("bob"); //This is fact 2
	man("frank"); //This says frank is man
});

The above code creates a knowlage base containing three facts. The first and last line in the example will be explained later. So how do we use this knowlage base? We query it like so!

if (knowlagebase.query($jsunify(man("frank")))) {
  console.log("frank is a man!");
}
else { console.log("frank is NOT a man!") }
//Above code should print "frank is a man!"

if (knowlagebase.query($jsunify(man("sue")))) {
  console.log("sue is a man!")
}
else { console.log("sue is NOT a man!") }

Ok, I think the queries above are farily obvious. In the first example we are asking if there is a man in named frank aka man("frank"). There is so the console should display "frank is a man!". The second example asks if there is a man named sue. There is not so "sue is NOT a man!" is written to the console.

A note about the $jsunify function

As mentioned before JSUnify includes a compier. The compiler is optional and does not have to be used but provides syntactic sugar making significantly easer to write and read JSUnify programs. The $jsunify function is a flag that tells the compiler to process the code inside of the $jsunify function call. If the code inside of the $jsunify function call is an anonymous function then the code is compiled to a JSUnify program. If the code is simply an expression it is compiled to JSUnify's json format. This is mainly used to create quires.

Example 2

The second knowledge base contains the same facts as last time and a two rules.

var knowlagebase = $jsunify(function(){
	woman("sue"); //This is fact 1
	man("bob"); //This is fact 2
	man("frank"); //This says frank is man
    hasCar("bob"); //This says bob has a car
    hasCar("sue"); //This says sue has a car
    //If bob has a car then he car drive
    canDrive("bob") == hasCar("bob"); 
    //If X is a man then X is a good driver ;)
    goodDriver(X) == man(X) && hasCar(X);
});

Look at the line canDrive("bob") == hasCar("bob");. This is a rule. A rule is made of two parts 1) a head and 2) a tail. The head is only true if the body is true. In this case the head is canDrive("bob") and the tail is hasCar("bob"). If you look further up in the knowledge base you will see that bob does indeed have a car so the query canDrive("bob") should succeed.

if (knowlagebase.query($jsunify(canDrive("bob")))) {
  console.log("bob can drive!")
}
else { console.log("bob can NOT drive!") }
//This example should print "bob can drive!" to the console.

Now look at the rule goodDriver(X) == man(X) && hasCar(X);. Notice that this line has two conditions to the body of the rule, man(X) and hasCar(X). This line also introduces variables. In the rule X is a variable and can be bound to a value. For example if you queried goodDriver("bob") X would be bound to "bob"and the rule after binding would look like goodDriver("bob") == man("bob") && hasCar("bob"). Similarly if you queried goodDriver("frank") X would be bound to "frank" and the rule after binding would look like goodDriver("frank") == man("frank") && hasCar("frank").

if (knowlagebase.query($jsunify(goodDriver("bob")))) {
  console.log("bob is a good driver!");
}
else { console.log("bob is NOT a good driver!") }
//1) JSUnify finds the rule goodDriver(X) == man(X) && hasCar(X);
//   and binds X to "bob".
//2) JSUnify tries to satisfy the first condition man("bob") and succeeds
//3) JSUnify tries to satisfy the second condition hasCar("bob") and succeeds
//4) JSUnify, satisfying all the conditions, asserts goodDriver("bob")
//5) "bob is a good driver!" is printed to the console.

if (knowlagebase.query($jsunify(goodDriver("frank")))) {
  console.log("frank is a good driver!");
}
else { console.log("frank is NOT a good driver!") }
//1) JSUnify finds the rule goodDriver(X) == man(X) && hasCar(X);
//   and binds X to "frank".
//2) JSUnify tries to satisfy the first condition man("frank") and succeeds
//3) JSUnify tries to satisfy the second condition hasCar("frank") and fails
//4) JSUnify, NOT satisfying all the conditions, failes to resolve the query.
//5) "frank is NOT a good driver!" is printed to the console.