A.8.8 Residual goals

Here is an example session with a few queries and their answers:

?- X #> 3.
X in 4..sup.

?- X #\= 20.
X in inf..19\/21..sup.

?- 2*X #= 10.
X = 5.

?- X*X #= 144.
X in -12\/12.

?- 4*X + 2*Y #= 24, X + Y #= 9, [X,Y] ins 0..sup.
X = 3,
Y = 6.

?- X #= Y #<==> B, X in 0..3, Y in 4..5.
B = 0,
X in 0..3,
Y in 4..5.

The answers emitted by the toplevel are called residual programs, and the goals that comprise each answer are called residual goals. In each case above, and as for all pure programs, the residual program is declaratively equivalent to the original query. From the residual goals, it is clear that the constraint solver has deduced additional domain restrictions in many cases.

To inspect residual goals, it is best to let the toplevel display them for us. Wrap the call of your predicate into call_residue_vars/2 to make sure that all constrained variables are displayed. To make the constraints a variable is involved in available as a Prolog term for further reasoning within your program, use copy_term/3. For example:

?- X #= Y + Z, X in 0..5, copy_term([X,Y,Z], [X,Y,Z], Gs).
Gs = [clpfd: (X in 0..5), clpfd: (Y+Z#=X)],
X in 0..5,
Y+Z#=X.

This library also provides reflection predicates (like fd_dom/2, fd_size/2 etc.) with which we can inspect a variable's current domain. These predicates can be useful if you want to implement your own labeling strategies.