Java Meets Prolog
for Advisors, Analysts and Agents

[This article was originally published in PC AI magazine, Nov/Dec 1996. The magazine can be reached at PC AI, 3310 West Bell Rd., Suite 119, Phoenix AZ, USA 85023 Tel: (602) 971-1869, FAX: (602) 971-2321, E-Mail: [email protected], Web: http://www.pcai.com/pcai]

Introduction

AI technology has often been thought to have the greatest benefits for naïve users of computers. That is, AI can be used to provide more human-like services to individuals whose expertise is not computers themselves. The classical example of this is the early medical diagnostic systems designed to provide advice to doctors.

There are numerous examples of such services one can imagine implementing using AI tools, but the problem has always been how to make the service readily available and up-to-date for the end user.

Consider for example a travel advisor. Many AI students have written applications that reason about transportation schedules and provide advice to potential travelers. But this application is of strictly academic interest without 1) connections to live travel schedules and 2) easy access for the traveler.

The Internet provides both these missing pieces. The travel advisor can now be implemented on a server with live access to the latest transportation schedules and easy Web-based access for the traveler.

The potential is enormous. Consider technical support applications, with the same two problems. With the Internet, users can easily access diagnostic applications that are connected to the latest vendor information. An academically interesting application suddenly becomes extremely practical.

And wait until the marketeers of the world discover the potential for consumer advisors. The same travel advisor type application can be applied for any consumer products and services. Consumers can surf the Web and access applications that dispense advice on which model car to get, what type of insurance to buy, which TV cable services to sign up for, etc.

Diagnostic services for all areas of life can also be made available, for figuring out why there are brown spots on the lawn, or the faucets are leaking, or you're dissatisfied at work. Maybe these advisors would be on Web pages implemented by a fertilizer company, plumbing manufacturer, and job placement agency, or maybe they would be implemented by individuals adding their bits of expertise to the global community.

No matter whether academic, commercial or individual, all sorts of AI applications that weren't practical because they couldn't connect to current data, or couldn't be easily accessed by their target audience, suddenly become practical.

The Tools

We have always felt that AI technology is best implemented as embedded components in conventional applications, and for this reason built the Amzi! Prolog engine as a library, the Amzi! Logic Server, that can be called from other development environments, such as C++, Delphi and Visual Basic. (see "Vendor's Forum" PC AI Sep/Oct 94.)

For Internet applications with AI components, we've implemented a custom rule-engine (see "Building Custom Rule Engines" PC AI Mar/Apr 96) that uses CGI scripts for communication with Web pages (see "Web-Based Intelligent Tech Support" PC AI Sep/Oct 96) and, most recently a Java class.

Java is designed to be a simple, object-oriented language for deploying secure, multithreaded network applications (both clients and servers). Prolog is ideal for building the intelligent components, expert systems and logic-bases discussed above. In combination, Java and Prolog are an ideal pair for delivering useful advisor/analyst applications on the Internet.

This article focuses on the design, implementation and uses of a Java class that encapsulates Prolog services.

Where to Learn About Java

If you want to learn more about Java and Java Applets, see java.sun.com/doc. You can also download Sun's Java Development Kit (JDK) from there. The Java Class and samples in this article are built with JDK 1.0.2. Netscape is developing its own interface for native methods called the Java Runtime Interface (JRI); also check out its new LiveWire and LiveConnect technology for integrating Java on both the client (Navigator) and server sides. For more information on it and Java Script see developer.netscape.com. Finally Microsoft is shipping Java support for their Internet Explorer at www.microsoft.com/ie/.

Design of the Amzi! Java Class

The Amzi! Logic Server is written in C/C++ and is delivered as a dynamic library (DLL under Windows, shared library under Solaris, BSDI Unix and Linux) that can be linked to any application that can call a dynamic library. It includes lsapis for specific development environments that make it easier to access from those environments, such as Delphi and Visual Basic. The Java class is a wrapper on the Logic Server designed for use from Java.

To build a Java class whose methods are not implemented in Java, one needs to build a new library that conforms to the calling conventions expected by the Java runtime. This was the first step in implementing the Amzi! Java class. The links from a Java program to the basic Amzi! library are shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1

Amzi32 is the Amzi! Logic Server. AmziJava is the new library that connects the Amzi! Java Class to the Amzi! Logic Server.

In addition to this underlying architecture, there are a number of features of the Java class that were dictated by the distinct characteristics of Java. These are detailed in the following sections.

Object Oriented

The Amzi! Logic Server has already been packaged for two object-oriented development languages, C++ and Delphi. These classes allow developers to derive their own application-specific classes that encapsulate Prolog services (see "Objects and Logic-C++ Meets Prolog", PC AI May/Jun 95)

The Java implementation borrows from the ideas in these classes. It includes a main 'LogicServer' class that encapsulates a Prolog engine and its API, and an 'LSException' class used for error handling. They are both included in a Java package, 'amzi.ls'. Figure 2 is an expanded architecture diagram that illustrates the package and its classes.<

Figure 2

The LogicServer class includes all the methods that give the developer full control over the Prolog engine. These include methods to:

setup, initialize, reset and close the Prolog engine
load and/or consult Prolog programs
issue Prolog queries
assert/retract Prolog terms
convert between Java strings and Prolog terms
get values into Java variables from Prolog atoms, strings and numbers
build and decompose Prolog lists
build and decompose Prolog structures
return information about errors

The LSException class has no methods and is simply used to signal and catch errors as described in the section on 'Exceptions.'

Pointerless Methods

The biggest challenge in the design of the Amzi! Java class was the requirement for pointerless methods. The creators of Java wanted to keep their language simple, so they did not include support for pointers nor for passing parameters by reference. This meant all of the Java methods had to be implemented so they return a single value.

A fundamental data type for the Prolog interface is a Prolog term. Internally, a Prolog term is a pointer, but, since that pointer is not manipulated by the application, it can be stored as an integer, similar to how it is stored in the Visual Basic interface. Unlike VB, Java integers are 64-bits, which means they can be used for both 32- and 64-bit implementations of Amzi! Prolog.

Many Logic Server API (LSAPI) functions return error codes, and use argument pointers to pass values back and forth. The Java class, like other Amzi! lsapis, is designed to use exception handling for errors, with return values passed directly as return values, without using pointers.

There were a few LSAPI functions that required special treatment.

Issuing Prolog Queries

The LSAPI functions that issue Prolog queries return TRUE or FALSE, corresponding to Prolog success or failure, and return the unified query term as an argument. For example a function issuing the query 'available(com, Port)' will return true or false plus the term representing the query with the Port variable unified with the result.

This basic pattern is modified in the Java class, so that query methods return the Prolog term if the query was successful, and return 0 if the query fails.

Retrieving Values from Prolog Lists

The methods to retrieve values from a Prolog list also returned two items, the head of the list and a term representing the tail of the list. In this case the LSAPI was extended for Java to include two new methods, one for each of these values. One is called getHead and the other getTail.

String Conversion

Strings in Java are not C strings. Instead they are represented in Unicode to accommodate the wide range of non-ASCII characters. The LogicServer methods automatically convert strings between the two formats. The upcoming 4.0 release of the Amzi! Logic Server will use Unicode strings making the conversion unnecessary.

Exceptions

Instead of returning error codes, all the LogicServer methods use Java's exception mechanism. The LSException class is thrown when an error occurs. The actual error message can be retrieved from an error catcher by calling the ErrMsg method for the LogicServer object that generated the error.

Multi Threaded

Java allows you to start multiple threads in the same program. The upcoming Amzi! 4.0 release readily accommodates this by allowing multiple, simultaneous Prolog engines. Internally each engine is represented by an engine id, but the Java class hides this as a private class variable. So each instance of the Java Logic Server class will contain its own Prolog runtime environment.

Using the Amzi! Java Class

To use the LogicServer class you import the amzi.ls package into your Java program. From there you can either instantiate a new LogicServer object and invoke its methods, or you can define a new class that extends the LogicServer class adding new methods and variables. For this article, we will use the first approach to implement an application that dispenses advice on how to ship a package.

The Prolog portion of the shipping advisor takes the type of package, its weight, UPS zone and a couple of shipping options as input. It then runs through a rule base that determines the various options their cost and delivery times. This application is one of the standard Amzi! samples, embedded without change, in a Java front end for this article.

The User Interface

For simplicity, the shipping information is gathered using Java's AWT (Alternative Window Toolkit) package. The user fills in the edit and list boxes on the top, presses the 'Go' button, and the program fills the main text box with the various options. Figure 3 shows the screen.

Figure 3: The shipping advisor screen

The Java code for building the screen is cumbersome and dull. Future Java development environments will no doubt automate this process in a manner similar to Delphi, Visual Basic or C++. The interesting code is how Java interacts with the LogicServer class after the user presses 'Go'.

Calling Prolog

First, a new instance of the Amzi! LogicServer is created and initialized and the compiled Prolog code file (ship.xpl) is loaded:

LogicServer ls = new LogicServer();ls.Init("");ls.Load("ship.xpl");

Next, all the user inputs are asserted into Prolog's dynamic database as facts of the form 'known(Attribute, Value)'. Java's excellent string handling makes building the Prolog terms easy. In this case the strings are built using Java functions that retrieve text values from the user input form (see top of Figure 3).

ls.AssertaStr( "known(weight, " + weight.getText() + ")" );
if (cod.getState())
    ls.AssertaStr( "known(cod, yes)" );
else
    ls.AssertaStr( "known(cod, no)" );
ls.AssertaStr( "known(declared_value, " + decvalue.getText() + ")" );
ls.AssertaStr( "known(ups_zone, " + zone.getText()+")");
ls.AssertaStr( "known(type, " + pkgtype.getSelectedItem() + ")" );
ls.AssertaStr( "known(destination, 'USA')" );

Next the Prolog expert is consulted to provide a list of options. This is accomplished first by calling the option/4 predicate in the shipping advisor. It fires Prolog rules that result in a recommendation being returned in its four arguments, which represent the shipper, service, cost and delivery time. On backtracking, it returns other possible recommendations.

The query term is entered in the LSAPI function CallStr() just as it would be from a Prolog listener. As mentioned above, CallStr() returns the unified term, from which the arguments are extracted using the LSAPI GetStrArg() methods. The arguments are all extracted as text, which are added to the Java text area, named 'advice' in this application.

term = ls.CallStr("option(Shipper, Service, Cost, Delivery)");
    do
    {
        advice.appendText(ls.GetStrArg(term, 1));
        advice.appendText(" : ");
        advice.appendText(ls.GetStrArg(term, 2));
        advice.appendText("\n  $");       
        amt = ls.GetIntArg(term, 3);
        famt = amt;
        advice.appendText(Float.toString(famt/100));
        advice.appendText(",  ");
        advice.appendText(ls.GetStrArg(term, 4));
       advice.appendText("\n\n");      
    } while (ls.Redo());

The call to Redo() is used to cause the Prolog engine to backtrack and reunify the query term with another recommendation. This continues until there are no more recommendations, and Redo() returns FALSE. At this point the text box is filled with all the available recommendations.

Finally the Prolog engine is closed:

ls.Close();

The full shipping advisor example is available for download, with the Java class, from the Amzi! Web site, http://www.amzi.com.

Extending Prolog with Java Methods

The Amzi! Logic Server provides tools that let you implement your own extended predicates. These allow you to write Prolog code that directly accesses anything you like. Extended predicates are simple to implement in languages that support function pointers, such as C/C++ and Delphi.

Java does not support function pointers but Java does provide a way for native 'C' methods to invoke Java methods. Extended Prolog predicates that call Java are implemented using this indirection. (See the Amzi! Java class documentation for details.)

Alternative Architectures

The above example was built as a standalone Java application for simplicity. There are a number of ways to use Java on both the client and server sides of an application. Here are a couple of alternative architectures worth noting.

Java Client, Prolog Server

The AWT user interface could be written as a Java Applet that communicates with a Prolog server by means of sockets. This is not allowed by many browsers for security reasons.

Java Client, Java+Prolog Server

Both the user interface and client-server communication could be written in Java, with the Logic Server embedded on the server side.

HTML Client, Java+Prolog Server

As the user interface is very straightforward, it could be handled entirely with HTML forms and a CGI program written in Java that accesses the Logic Server. Instead of CGI a direct connection could be made using Microsoft's ISAPI, or Netscape's NSAPI or LiveWire.

JavaScript or VBScript + HTML Client, Java+Prolog Server

The user interface could be enhanced with JavaScript or VBScript on the client-side to do some error checking such as ensuring a proper U.P.S. zone or weight specification.

Future Possibilities with Prolog and Java

All manner of intelligent components can be built for Java in Prolog. Here are some examples.

Servers

The shipping advisor is one example of using a Prolog logic-base to analyze a situation and give advice. This same architecture could be used for other advisors that act as a guide to an Internet site, provide travel advice or recommend products.

Prolog and Java can be used in combination for servers that diagnose problems, recommend configurations or schedule events. For example, Amzi!'s Web-based technical support system could be enhanced with JavaScript to provide an easier to use interface.

Clients

Prolog can also be used with Java on the client side to implement spider and robot applications that wander the net looking for information. Examples of this genre include the MetaCrawler program and ShopBot from the University of Washington (www.cs.washington.edu/research). MetaCrawler provides a value-added interface on the various search services and ShopBot looks for the best price for a product.

Intelligent Agents

Finally one of the hot buzzwords these days is 'agents.' Agents mean different things to different people, but whereas servers tend to be a source of some kind of information, resource or service which is accessed by clients, agents tend to work together on the same level to solve problems. An agent is kind of a mobile, mini-server. It knows how to solve small problems or a small portion of a large problem, like translate data from one format to another or schedule a particular event. It responds to requests from other agents to identify and perform the service(s) it provides. Much research is being conducted as to how to get agents to communicate with each other and with humans.

At the University of Otago in New Zealand, researchers are trying to demonstrate the benefits of using agents in the area of software tool integration, using university course administration as an experimental domain (divcom.otago.ac.nz:800/COM/INFOSCI/SECML/lab/sarg/). They are building agent lsapis for existing tools such as a VMS-based central records system, a dBase course database and various Delphi, DOS and Excel tools and applications for retrieving and formatting information such as student marks. They are using Java to write front-end programs for existing tools (such as Excel) so that they can communicate with other agents. Amzi! Prolog is being used in the heart of the facilitator agent to store information about other agents and their capabilities and needs. The facilitator agent is key to the operation of the system, because it is the center point where agents register the services they have to offer and submit requests to find other agents to perform particular services.

Conclusion

Java is a dynamic and exciting language. New development tools and libraries are being released every day as are new ways to connect and embed Java in Internet tools, clients and servers. The Java class is just one piece of an array of Amzi! Internet tools that include a sockets interface, CGI interface and ActiveX control. These tools let you use the power of Prolog to bring intelligence and reasoning to the Internet.

Mary Kroening is a founder of Amzi! and is responsible for their Internet-based development including the Java Class, a Sockets Interface and WebLS, a system for answering tech support questions, diagnosing problems and giving advice on Web pages. Mary can be reached at www.amzi.com. Amzi! can be found at http://www.amzi.com, ftp.amzi.com and www.amzi.com.

Java Meets Prolog for Advisors, Analysts and Agents