Samuel's Tech Blog

Install notes for SWI Prolog JPL on Ubuntu Jaunty (9.04)

JPL is a bi-directional Java/Prolog interface for SWI-Prolog, which I hope to be able to use for integrating Blipkit into Bioclipse, so I'm happy to have got it up running tonight. Below are some notes from the installation procedure.

NOTE: These are still rather incomplete notes about how to get this to work. Hope to make it into a verified tutorial later (I unfortunately haven't documented each and every step I took to get it working :( , so I might need to redo the install on a virtual machine to be sure)

I have followed the installation instructions on this page. (this page has some hints too).

JPL is not included in the Ubuntu repositories :( (only available for ubuntu 8.10 i think), so I had to install SWI-Prolog from source, which went Ok. I happened to install, among others, the following packages, which seemed like they were neede (though that is not verified):

• libjpeg-dev
• libxpm-dev
• libx11-dev

The XPCE package still can't be built though. (Says that it is missing "-lXpm")

EDIT: I found out (with the help of this thread) that I needed to install libxt-dev, which is available in the Ubuntu repos!

Then I copied

~/install/swi-prolog/pl-5.6.64/packages/jpl/libjpl.so

into

/usr/lib/swi-prolog/library/jpl/libjpl.so

I also made symlinks in /usb/bin, like so:

/usr/bin/libjava.so -> /usr/lib/jvm/java-1.5.0-sun/jre/lib/i386/libjava.so
/usr/bin/libjpl.so -> /home/samuel/install/swi-prolog/pl-5.6.64/packages/jpl/libjpl.so

Had to add the libjava.so to my PATH, by means of:

export PATH="/usr/lib/jvm/java-1.5.0-sun-1.5.0.19/jre/lib/i386/libjava.so":$PATH

For the prolog demo to work, I had to do:

export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/lib/jvm/java-1.5.0-sun-1.5.0.19/jre/lib/i386/:/usr/lib/jvm/java-1.5.0-sun-1.5.0.19/jre/lib/i386/client

(This discussion was very helpful for this.)

Now it works! I fire up swi-prolog with "pl" (If you have installed SWI-Prolog as an ubuntu package, you might need to use "swipl" or "swi-prolog"), and, standing in ~/install/swi-prolog/pl-5.6.64/packages/jpl/examples/prolog, I can now write (inside the prolog console):

[jpl_versions_demo].

Result is:

?- [jpl_versions_demo].
%    library(error) compiled into error 0.01 sec, 9,676 bytes
%   library(lists) compiled into lists 0.01 sec, 23,424 bytes
%  library(jpl) compiled into jpl 0.07 sec, 287,052 bytes
 
prolog library version: 3.1.4-alpha
  java library version: 3.1.4-alpha
     c library version: 3.1.4-alpha
BINGO! you appear to have the same version of each library installed
 
% jpl_versions_demo compiled 0.13 sec, 304,240 bytes
true.
 
?-  

D

The Java examples in examples/java/* work as well. cd:ing into

~/install/swi-prolog/pl-5.6.64/packages/jpl/examples/java/Family

sh run.sh

JPL demo: Family
 
% family.pl compiled 0.00 sec, 2,632 bytes
consult('family.pl') succeeded
child_of(joe, ralf) is provable
descendent_of(steve, ralf) is provable
first solution of descendent_of(X, ralf): X = joe
all solutions of descendent_of(X, ralf)
X = joe
X = mary
X = steve
each solution of descendent_of(X, ralf)
X = joe
X = mary
X = steve
each solution of descendent_of(X,Y)
X = joe, Y = ralf
X = mary, Y = joe
X = steve, Y = joe
X = mary, Y = ralf
X = steve, Y = ralf

(If this is not working next time I log in / reboot, I guess I'll have to add the LD_LIBRARY_PATHs in a more permanent way. Have to figure out how...).

Possible next steps

• See if I can communicate with Prolog from a Bioclipse plugin as well
  • (Will probably include the task to add the .so libraries above, into the path of the JRE that Bioclipse is using etc.)
• Figure out how to talk specifically to blipkit (or the swi-prolog version which has the blipkit modules loaded)
• Do all kinds of interesting stuff with BLIPKIT in Bioclipse :)
• At last: Figure out how to package he whole thing in a neat way for easy installation etc.