Besides queues threads can share and exchange data using dynamic predicates. More...

Detailed Description

Besides queues threads can share and exchange data using dynamic predicates.

The multi-threaded version knows about two types of dynamic predicates By default, a predicate declared dynamic (see dynamic/1 ) is shared by all threads Each thread may assert, retract and run the dynamic predicate Synchronisation inside Prolog guarantees the consistency of the predicate Updates are logical: visible clauses are not affected by assert/retract after a query started on the predicate In many cases primitive from thread synchronisation should be used to ensure application invariants on the predicate are maintained

Besides shared predicates, dynamic predicates can be declared with the thread_local/1 directive Such predicates share their attributes, but the clause-list is different in each thread

Class Documentation

◆ thread_local/1

class thread_local/1

thread_local( +Functor/Arity)

related to the dynamic/1 directive It tells the system that the predicate may be modified using assert/1 , retract/1 , etc, during execution of the program Unlike normal shared dynamic data however each thread has its own clause-list for the predicate As a thread starts, this clause list is empty If there are still clauses as the thread terminates these are automatically reclaimed by the system The thread_local property implies the property dynamic

Thread-local dynamic predicates are intended for maintaining thread-specific state or intermediate results of a computation

It is not recommended to put clauses for a thread-local predicate into a file as in the example below as the clause is only visible from the thread that loaded the source-file All other threads start with an empty clause-list

:- thread_local
    @ foo/1 .
 
foo(gnat).