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Mode Declarations
Mode declarations are a way for the user to give some additional
information to the compiler, thus enabling it to do a better job.
The ECLiPSe compiler makes use of the mode information mainly to
improve indexing and to reduce code size.
Mode declarations are optional. They specify the argument instantiation
patterns that a predicate will be called with at runtime, for example:
:- mode p(+), q(-), r(++, ?).
The possible argument modes and their meaning are:
- +
- - The argument is instantiated, i.e. it is not a variable.
- ++
- - The argument is ground.
- -
- - The argument is not instantiated, it must be a free variable
without any constraints, especially it must not occur in any other
argument and it cannot be a suspending variable.
- ?
- - The mode is not known or it is neither of the above ones.
Note that, if the actual instantiation of a predicate call violates
its mode declaration, the behaviour is undefined.
Usually, an unexpected failure occurs in this case.
Warwick Harvey
2004-08-07