Prolog YiTool Library Code

Introduction

The latest version of these tools is available from http://www.yijing.co.uk/tools. These documents refer to the tool set released on 2005/11/20.

The Prolog modules described below provide a range of tools for exploring the algebraic and structural properties of the symbols of the Yijing. The facilities provided by these libraries are extensive, but use a command-line interface that requires you to learn some basic command syntax. If you have read my Flowers and Steps paper and you are looking for some tools focussed specifically on the material in that paper, then the Java YiTool, with its easy to use graphical interface, might be what you are looking for.

In this guide you will find a basic tutorial, introducing you to capabilities of the Prolog YiTools. However, it is not a general Prolog tutorial. If you need additional background, then I would suggest the following two sites:

You probably won't need to know Prolog in detail to use these libraries, but a familiarity with the basic syntax of the language will help to make sense of the examples below. If you want to construct your own expressions and explore, then some understanding of Prolog's execution model (including backtracking) and the idea of unification will be useful.

Tutorial Material

The first thing that you will need to do is install a Prolog interpreter. If you are running this tool on Microsoft Windows, then I recommend the free SWI-Prolog from Amsterdam University; the version of SWI used to develop this library is 5.4.7. Once you have this on your machine, you are ready to start working through the following tutorial material.

  1. Installing and loading the library code
  2. Notation for hexagrams and algebraic expressions

Library Module Reference

There is an alphabetical index of all library predicates here which can also be reached through the graphic link shown on the right. The individual libraries are documented below. Note that only the main facilities for each library are described. If you want to know exactly what the system is capable of, then you'll need to refer to the source code.

:- use_module(set). :- use_module(utils). :- use_module(closure). :- use_module(direction).