Prolog for Mac

by Valentin Simonov

Let's assume that you need to set up Prolog for OS X. If you are still here let's continue.

After reading some book from 80s about Prolog I found that language to be interesting and I decided to write some simple things in it. But I had to install it somehow on my Mac preferably without any stupid virtual machines. So here's what I ended with.

  • All crossplatform solutions are based on Eclipse, so first of all you need Eclipse. There are a lot of versions, but I chose the one with less stuff I don't need because I won't use anything related to Java development.
  • The first plugin I tested was PDT which is too old and doesn't work with Eclipse 3.5, I downloaded 3.1 but haven't tested it because I got another plugin which works — ProDT. This is just what I need. From Downloads you should choose the smallest file.
  • For ProDT to work you need SWI-Prolog — some kind of opensource Prolog.
  • I'm not sure if SWI-Prolog requires MacPorts, but anyway I recommend you to install it. It's useful.
  • Extract ProDT to eclipse/dropins/prodt/eclipse/plugins, run eclipse which installs it automatically.
  • After that in ProDT preferences (Eclipse -> Preferences -> Prolog -> Compilers -> Swi Compiler) set compiler path which is at /opt/local/bin/swipl.
  • Switch to Prolog view Window -> Show Perspective -> Other... -> Prolog.

That's it. Now you can test if it actually works:

yes(one).
yes(two).

Run and write in console:

yes(X).
x = one;
x = two.