UnifyWeaver

Book 1: Foundations

Architecture, Prolog Basics, and the Preference System

Part of the UnifyWeaver Education Series

This book covers the fundamental concepts every UnifyWeaver user needs to understand before working with any target language. Start here if you’re new to UnifyWeaver.

Prerequisites

• Basic command-line knowledge
• Programming experience (any language)
• SWI-Prolog 8.0+ installed

What You’ll Learn

By completing this book, you will understand:

• Core Prolog concepts (facts, rules, queries, unification)
• UnifyWeaver’s principal compiler architecture
• Architecture variants (fixed-point, query engine, generator)
• How targets are selected and configured
• Basic compilation workflow

Chapter Overview

Part 1: Core Concepts (Complete)

Chapter 1: Introduction

• What is UnifyWeaver?
• Why declarative-to-imperative compilation?
• Overview of available targets
• Installation and setup

Chapter 2: Prolog Fundamentals

• Facts, rules, and queries
• Unification and pattern matching
• Lists and recursion basics
• The cut operator

Chapter 3: UnifyWeaver Architecture

• The principal architecture (stream-based targets)
• Compilation pipeline overview
• Pattern classification
• Constraint analysis and template rendering
• Note on architecture variants (fixed-point, query engine, generator)

Part 2: Configuration (Planned)

Chapter 4: The Preference System

• Default behaviors
• User preferences
• Target-specific options
• Configuration files

Chapter 5: Plugin Architecture

• Data source plugins
• Target plugins
• Custom extensions
• Plugin lifecycle

Architecture Variants

This book introduces the principal architecture used by stream-based targets. Other books cover variant architectures:

Architecture	Targets	Covered In
Principal (Stream)	Bash, AWK, Go, Rust	This book + Books 2, 6, 9
Fixed-Point	C# Query Runtime	Book 3: C# Target
Query Engine	C# with IR	Book 3: C# Target
Generator	Python	Book 5: Python Target

The core concepts (classification, constraint analysis) apply across all variants, but execution models differ.

What’s Next?

After completing Book 1, continue to:

• Book 2: Bash Target - Stream compilation in depth
• Book 3: C# Target - Fixed-point and query engine approaches

License

This educational content is licensed under CC BY 4.0. Code examples are dual-licensed under MIT OR Apache-2.0.

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