Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!rutgers!mit-eddie!bu-cs!purdue!decwrl!sun!quintus!ok
From: ok@quintus.uucp (Richard A. O'Keefe)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.prolog
Subject: Re: Quintus Prolog Memory Management
Message-ID: <698@quintus.UUCP>
Date: 18 Nov 88 03:40:24 GMT
References: <ALF.88Oct2184429@hathor.sics.se > <818@etive.ed.ac.uk> <687@quintus.UUCP> <7919@megaron.arizona.edu> <3@ubc-cs.UUCP>
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Reply-To: ok@quintus.UUCP (Richard A. O'Keefe)
Organization: Quintus Computer Systems, Inc.
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In article <3@ubc-cs.UUCP> kean@grads.cs.ubc.ca (Alex Kean) writes:
>I was attempting to run a Quintus Prolog program ...
>Unfortunately I ran into [segmentation fault] on a Sun4, SunOS 3.2.

***PLEASE***, will people who have problems with Quintus Prolog
SEND BUG REPORTS TO QUINTUS.  It's not as if it was hard, or anything.
All you do is send electronic mail to
	...!sun!quintus!hotline

If you get a segmentation fault from plain Prolog code, and still more
if the system exits unexpectedly, that is certainly a bug.
I am currently running some tests to see whether the problem still
exists:  it is possible that this may be an instance of a mistake which
was fixed before the current release.  (Don't forget to include the
version number in a bug report.)

>Questions: (a) Which stack has overflowed ?

This question is meaningless in Quintus Prolog, where the memory areas
do not have fixed sizes but expand and contract as needed.  Given that
each iteration of loop/1 in Kean's example constructs about 1Mbyte on
the heap, it's probably the heap which overflows most of the time, but
it may grab space from one of the other stacks and cause that to
overflow.

>           (b) In general, what are the factors to observe when writing
>               prolog programs that takes up lots of memory. 

Start by reading appendix I in the Quintus Prolog Reference Manual.

(a) Good data structure design.  Don't over-use lists; don't use wrappers;
    don't copy things when the original will do.
(b) Be careful to make your programs as determinate as possible; this
    is automatic when good coding practice meets good data structure
    design.

I'll illustrate (b) with Kean's example.

>pair(0,_).
>pair(N,X) :-
>  append(X,X,Z1),
>  N1 is N - 1,
>  pair(N1,Z1).

There is *NOTHING* in this to say that the second clause should not be
tried once the first clause has succeeded.  Any Prolog system will
therefore be obliged to retain a choice-point for in this case.

Code this either as
	pair(0, _) :- !.
	pair(N, X) :-
		append(X, X, XX),
		M is N-1,
		pair(M, XX).

or as
	pair(N, X) :-
	    (	N =:= 0 -> true
	    ;	append(X, X, XX),
		M is N-1,
		pair(M, XX)
	    ).

(See the section on "counters" in chapter 1 of my tutorial.)

>loop(0).
>loop(N) :-
>  pair(18,['0123456789']),
>  !, garbage_collect,
>  J is N -1,
>  loop(J).

Once again, there is nothing in this to say that the second clause
should not be tried once the first clause has succeeded.  Code it as

	loop(0) :- !.
	loop(N) :-
		pair(18, [atom]),	% which is now determinate
		garbage_collect,
		M is N-1,
		loop(M).

or as
	loop(N) :-
	    (	N =:= 0 -> true
	    ;	pair(18, [atom]),
		garbage_collect,
		M is N-1,
		loop(M)
	    ).

If you have choice points lying around, the arguments saved in them may
be hanging on to things you think are garbage.

(c) The old hack:  when you have a determinate query which isn't supposed
    to bind any variables, fail back over it.

	loop(N) :-
	    (	N =:= 0 -> true
	    ;	\+ \+ pair(18, [atom]),		% det. test, reclaim space
		M is N-1,
		loop(M)
	    ).

    If you do this, it is better to move the failing back into the
    definition of the called predicate.

One Quintus-specific point (described in section 7-5 of the Quintus
Prolog System-Dependent Features manual) is that
	| ?- prolog_flag(gc_trace, _, on).
will make the garbage collector print out a summary of what it has done,
which can be quite illuminating.