Don't panic!

Don't Panic!

This page contains code examples, tips, known bugs and work-arounds, and similar information which may not be available in the regular documentation. All code examples may be freely downloaded.

The information on this page applies to SICStus Prolog 3. For information that do not apply to the latest version of SICStus Prolog 3, please see the separate page for earlier releases of SICStus Prolog 3. There is also a page for SICStus Prolog 4 which may contain some information relevant for SICStus Prolog 3.

Contents:

Download Password Does Not Work.
Connecting Java to SICStus Using Sockets.
Using SICStus Prolog from Microsoft Visual Studio.
This information is also useful if you want to bypass the spld and splfr tool, e.g., in a UNIX makefile.
SICStus and Linux with newer glibc.
SICStus and Linux with UTF-8 Locales.
Problems with SICStus tools on systems with very old versions of Perl.
UNIX NFS Automount Problems.
Mac OS X Prerequisites
How to Re-Enter License Information under Windows.
Trouble Creating SICStus Object From Java Under Windows.

Download Password Does Not Work

The password for downloading the SICStus Prolog installers changes frequently. Contact SICStus Request if the password you received with your license information no longer works.

Connecting Java to SICStus Using Sockets

We recommend library(prologbeans) as the way to connect Java to Prolog.

This demo is for SICStus 3 only.

A demo that shows how a Java application can communicate using sockets to a SICStus that runs in the background. It does not use Jasper.

Download socketdemo.jar (version 0.2) and read the README for instructions. You can also browse the source (the source is included in the jar file as well); see the README.

If you are interested in this code you should also check out the AgentBase page. Another program that connects SICStus with Java through sockets is CLPGUI, a graphical user interface for Constraint Logic Programming.

Using SICStus Prolog from Microsoft Visual Studio

Examples on building foreign resources and run-time systems under Windows, with and without spld/splfr. The examples use both C and C++. The same techniques can be used under UNIX, for instance if you want to use the C compiler directly instead of spld and splfr.

Note: these examples currently use Visual Studio 6.0 and therefore applies only to the VC6 version of SICStus Prolog 3. If you use the VC10 (Visual Studio 2010) version of SICStus Prolog 3 then the information in the SICStus Prolog 4 versions of these instructions may be more useful.

Browse the SICStus 3 source or Download the SICStus 3 version

SICStus and Linux with newer glibc

We do not distribute SICStus for all versions of glibc. However, you can install a glibc X distribution of SICStus on a glibc > X machine as follows.

Rerun InstallSICStus with the option --all-questions, and answer "yes" to the question "Attempt an installation anyway".

SICStus and Linux with UTF-8 Locales

On some old systems, certain SICStus components based on Perl, notably spld and splfr, can misbehave in UTF-8 (Unicode) locales. This can be worked around by e.g.

sh,bash> export LC_ALL=C
csh,tcsh> setenv LC_ALL C

The problem is caused by bugs in very old versions of Perl (Perl 5.8.0 and possibly earlier versions). The bug is probably not Linux-specific.

UNIX NFS Automount Problems

If you install SICStus on a server in a location that is not available on the client machines, e.g., an automount directory, then the clients will not be able to run the installed sicstus executable. A typical symptom could be:

Could not find bootfile '/export/local/sp-3.11/lib/sicstus-3.11.1/bin/spds.sav'

This has been partly fixed as of SICStus 3.11.1. The sicstus executable with a version suffix does not suffer the problem, but the sicstus executable without a version suffix is broken. A simple workaround is to copy the executable with a version suffix to the one without a version suffix.

Mac OS X Prerequisites

SICStus Prolog 3 is only supported for Mac OS X X 10.6 (a.k.a. Snow Leopard), or later.

Before installing SICStus Prolog 3 we recommend that you install the Apple developer tools (XCode). The Apple Developer tools are also required, together with the appropriate third party products, to use the Berkeley DB library; see the release notes for details.

The Apple Developer tools may be present on your Mac OS X installation disks. They are also downloadable free of charge from the Apple Developer Connection.

If the Apple Developer tools is not present, it is possible to install a "pre-built" version of SICStus but the tools spld and splfr, used for building executables with SICStus, will not work.

Mac OS Java

If you intend to use the Jasper Java interface you need the latest Java development tools as well. These are also downloadable from Apple.

How to Re-Enter License Information under Windows

The SICStus development system (spwin.exe) will prompt for license information if the license entered during installation was invalid or has expired.

Note: On Windows Vista, and later, you need to use "Run as administrator" to start spwin.exe if you intend to enter or change the license information. Otherwise it will be saved in a location where sicstus.exe will not find it.

Trouble Creating SICStus Object From Java Under Windows

Some Windows users experience an unfortunate interaction between how Java and SICStus allocate memory. The symptom is that the se.sics.jasper.SICStus cannot be created when Java, i.e., java.exe is the top-level application. There is a workaround described in this document.


Copyright © 2001-2011 SICS AB, All Rights Reserved.		For more information on SICStus Prolog, please email SICStus Request.