Example
append([], Bs, Bs).
append([A|As], Bs, [A|Cs]) :-
append(As, Bs, Cs).
append/3 is one of the most well-known Prolog relations. It defines a relation between three arguments and is true if the third argument is a list that denotes the concatenation of the lists that are specified in the first and second arguments.
Notably, and as is typical for good Prolog code, append/3 can be used in several directions: It can be used to:
-
append two fully or partially instantiated lists:
?- A = [1, 2, 3], B=[4, 5, 6], append(A, B, Y) Output: A = [1, 2, 3], B = [4, 5, 6], Y = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]. -
check whether the relation is true for three fully instantiated lists:
?- A = [1, 2, 3], B = [4, 5], C = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6], append(A, B, C) Output: false -
generate all possible ways to append two lists to a given list:
?- append(A, B, [1, 2, 3, 4]). Output: A = [], B = [1, 2, 3, 4] ; A = [1], B = [2, 3, 4] ; A = [1, 2], B = [3, 4] ; A = [1, 2, 3], B = [4] ; A = [1, 2, 3, 4], B = [] ; false.
