Warren's Abstract Machine
Warren's Abstract Machine (WAM) referred to in the computer science one in 1983 by David HD Warren specified ideal processor , the machine language as the target language for Prolog - translator - or interpreter is used. One also speaks of a virtual machine , since the WAM processor does not actually exist as hardware (e.g. made of silicon ), but only as software .
After translation into WAM code, Prolog programs can be executed on the runtime system by a WAM implementation , i.e. a WAM interpreter that simulates this ideal processor. Alternatively, as with GNU Prolog, the WAM code can be used as an intermediate code , which in turn is translated into a further intermediate code called mini-assembly before the machine language of the target processor is generated from it.
literature
- Warren, David HD: An abstract Prolog instruction set (PDF; 269 kB) , Technical Note 309, SRI International, Menlo Park, CA, October 1983.