First-order theories for pure Prolog programs with negation

Abstract

The standard theory of logic programming is not applicable to Prolog programs even not to pure code. Modifying the theory to take account of reality more is the motivation of this article. For this purpose we introduce the l-completion and the inductive extension of a logic program. Both are first-order theories in a language with operators for success, failure and termination of goals. The l-completion of a logic program is a sound and complete axiomatization of the Prolog depth-first search under certain natural conditions; the inductive extension of the l-completion is a suitable theory for proving termination and equivalence of pure Prolog programs with negation.