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19.3  Waiting for other Constraints

The constrained list in the suspend attribute is used for instance in generic predicates which have to be notified about the possible change of the state of a variable, especially its unifiability with other terms. Our example with the dif predicate could be for instance extended to work with finite domain or other constrained variables. The modification is fairly simple:

The predicate compare_args/5 is thus changed as follows:

compare_args(_, _, _, _, Yes) :-
    nonvar(Yes).
compare_args(A1, A2, Link, NewLink, Yes) :-
    var(Yes),
    (A1 == A2 ->
        Link = NewLink
    ;
    (var(A1);var(A2)) ->
        (not_unify(A1, A2) ->
            Yes = yes
        ;
            suspend(compare_args(A1, A2, Link, NewLink, Yes), 3,
  [[A1|A2]->constrained, Yes->inst])
        )
    ;
        compare_terms(A1, A2, Link, NewLink, Yes)
    ).

Now our dif3/4 predicate yields correct results even for constrained variables:

[eclipse 1]: dif3(A, B, Y, N), A::1..10, B::20..30.

Y = yes
N = N
A = A{[1..10]}
B = B{[20..30]}
yes.
[eclipse 2]: dif3(A, B, Y, N), A::1..10, B = 5, A ## 5.

Y = yes
N = N
B = 5
A = A{[1..4, 6..10]}
yes.
[eclipse 18]: dif3(A, B, Y, N), A + B $= 1, A $= 1/2.

Y = Y
N = no
B = 1 / 2
A = 1 / 2
yes.


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