Foundations of Logic Programming (Symbolic computation/Artificial Intelligence) - Hardcover

In the two and a half years since the frrst edition of this book was published, the field of logic programming has grown rapidly. Consequently, it seemed advisable to try to expand the subject matter covered in the first edition. The new material in the second edition has a strong database flavour, which reflects my own research interests over the last three years. However, despite the fact that the second edition has about 70% more material than the first edition, many worthwhile topic!! are still missing. I can only plead that the field is now too big to expect one author to cover everything. In the second edition, I discuss a larger class of programs than that discussed in the first edition. Related to this, I have also taken the opportunity to try to improve some of the earlier terminology. Firstly, I introduce "program statements", which are formulas of the form A+-W, where the head A is an atom and the body W is an arbitrary formula. A "program" is a finite set of program statements. There are various restrictions of this class. "Normal" programs are ones where the body of each program statement is a conjunction of literals. (The terminology "general", used in the first edition, is obviously now inappropriate).

This is the second edition of the first book to give an account of the mathematical foundations of Logic Programming. Its purpose is to collect, in a unified and comprehensive manner, the basic theoretical results of Logic Programming, which have previously only been available in widely scattered research papers. In addition to presenting the technical results, the book also contains many illustrative examples. Many of the examples and problems are part of the folklore of Logic Programming and are not easily obtainable elsewhere. The second edition contains about 70 % more material than the first edition. There are two new chapters, one on a more general class of programs in which the body of a program statement can be an arbitrary first order formula, and one on Deductive Database Systems. Further material on negation has been added to the third chapter. In addition, the problem sections of each chapter have been expanded so that there are now over 100 problems. The book is intended to be self-contained, the only prerequisites being some familarity with PROLOG and knowledge of some basic undergraduate mathematics. The book is aimed at researchers and graduate students in Logic Programming, Artificial Intelligence and Database Systems. The material is suitable either as a reference book for researchers or as a text book for a graduate course on the theoretical aspects of Logic Programming and Deductive Database Systems.