A Compiler for Ordered Logic Programs

This paper describes a system, called PLP, for compiling ordered logic programs into standard logic programs under the answer set semantics. In an ordered logic program, rules are named by unique terms, and preferences among rules are given by a set of dedicated atoms. An ordered logic program is transformed into a second, regular, extended logic program wherein the preferences are respected, in that the answer sets obtained in the transformed theory correspond with the preferred answer sets of the original theory. Since the result of the translation is an extended logic program, existing logic programming systems can be used as underlying reasoning engine. In particular, PLP is conceived as a front-end to the logic programming systems dlv and smodels.