functor/3¶

"functor( T, F, N" ) is iso

The top functor of term T is named F and has arity N.

When T is not instantiated, F and N must be. If N is 0, F must be an atomic symbol, which will be unified with T. If N is not 0, then F must be an atom and T becomes instantiated to the most general term having functor F and arity N. If T is instantiated to a term then F and N are respectively unified with its top functor name and arity.

In the current version of YAP the arity N must be an integer. Previous versions allowed evaluable expressions, as long as the expression would evaluate to an integer. This feature is not available in the ISO Prolog standard.