Request for comments, async ISO core standard I/O

Help!
1

Now I got an idea how to asyncify the ISO core standard I/O.
The idea is very simple and I try to solve one problem: How
can we make for example get_code/2 asyncified, without

sacrificing performance? I came up with this sketch:

get_code(S, C) :- get_code_buffered(S, C), !.
get_code(S, C) :- async_read_buffer(S), get_code(S, C).

There are some unresolved issues in the above code, like
how return end of file, i.e. -1 or how to deal with surrogate pairs.
But essentially the idea is that the stream S has a buffer

somewhere and that the fast path is to read from this buffer,
and we only need to yield when we replenish the buffer via
some I/O. This could give a quite fast asyncified get_code/2.

Is there any Prolog system that did already something like this?
I always see that get_code/2 is a primitive and was also folllowing
this approach in my systems so far. In the above I bootstrap it from two

other primitives, a synchronous one and a asynchronous one,
make it itself not anymore primitive. get_code_buffered/2 would
fail if it has reached the end of the buffer.

Edit 10.08.2022:
But there is a lot of work to do, peek_code/2 needs a similar
treatment, and then in my system I have also get_atom/3, which
would need some treatment. Scryer Prolog would go for the

XXX_char predicates first, if they are present in a Prolog system
they would also need some treatment. Also the Python and the
JavaScript target might turn out different. In JavaScript there are

different fetch modes, chunked and non-chunked. In non-chunked
we might get the whole file in one go, a second call to async_read_buffer/1
would not exist. Chunked is related to what SWI-Prolog calls http

streaming. I don’t know the details yet. And then maybe it should
transparently choose something synchronous if asynchronous
behaviour is not demanded from the Prolog interpreter at all.

2

SWI-Prolog has its own I/O buffer system. It wouldn’t be extremely hard to make all the input predicates yield if the buffer is empty. For now there are other priorities :slight_smile:

3

Anyway why ask for permission to write enhancement proposals (EPs),
just write them? From the time of Paulo Moura there are the most EPs.
Prolog threads/messages (October 28, 2008), Prolog global variables,

what else? You see the focus of his endeavours here, everything stalled
in the below forum in 2009, where did it go?

  • Core Revision
  • Definite Clause Grammars
  • Globals and Arrays
  • Multi-Threading
  • Portable Operating-System Interface
  • Unicode

https://www.prolog.logtalk.org/

What PEPs do you want to write? Did his focus match the
requirements of Web Prolog. I do see missing:

  • Cooperative Multitasking
  • Foreign Functions Calls
  • Format and Protocolls
  • Prolog Corouting & Attributed Variables
  • What else?

Cooperative Multitasking would cover issues that recently poped up
in the WASM and non-WASM integration of Prolog system into a HTML page,
similarly Foreign Functions Calls, like having a DOM event handler call

Prolog, or manipulating DOM by Prolog. The Format and Protocolls item
can mean HTTP, JSON, etc… The first 3 topics are somehow interconnected,
so if you botch one of the 3 topics, the overall result is not so good.

Edit 12.08.2022:
Unfortunately cant read the old forum, it has some bit rot:

phpBB Debug] PHP Warning: in file [ROOT]/includes/bbcode.php
on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported,
use preg_replace_callback instead

Try for example the text of a message:
https://www.prolog.logtalk.org/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=24

Empty, could be the bbcode.php error…