Concatenation Functions

library(strings) defines a set of concatenation functions. Each of them takes a list of constants as its first argument, and returns the concatenation of the names of the constants as its second argument. They are

concat_atom(+ListOfConstants, -Atom)

unifies Atom with the atom whose name is the concatenation of the names of the ListOfConstants.

concat_atom(+ListOfConstants, Separator, -Atom)

like concat_atom/2, except that the elements of Atom are separated by Separator.

concat_chars(+ListOfConstants, -Chars)

unifies Chars with the list of character codes that is the concatenation of the names of the ListOfConstants.

concat_chars(+ListOfConstants, +Separator, -Chars)

like concat_chars/2, except that the elements of Chars are separated by +Separator.

Simplified versions of these predicates could have been defined thus:

     concat_atom(Constants, Atom) :-
             concat_chars(Constants, Chars),
             atom_chars(Atom, Chars).
     

     concat_chars([], []).
     concat_chars([Constant|Constants], Chars0) :-
             name(Constant, Name),
             append(Name, Chars1, Chars0),
             concat_chars(Constants, Chars1).
     

There is one additional "feature": in place of a constant, you may supply a non-empty list of character codes. For example,

     | ?- concat_atom([fred_,27], X).
     
     X = fred_27
     

and

     | ?- concat_atom([fred,"_",27], X).
     
     X = fred_27
     

both work. Beware: an empty list of character codes, "", is in fact the atom written []. Because of this ambiguity it is not possible to write a predicate that will accept any atom and any list of character codes, because "" = [] is both. [] is the atom [], which has two punctuation marks in its name. This is for compatibility with other Edinburgh Prologs. So while you might expect

     | ?- concat_atom([fr,"",ed], fred).
     
     no
     

you will in fact get

     | ?- concat_atom([fr,"",ed], X).
     
     X = 'fr[]ed'
     

This "feature" of allowing non-empty lists of character codes is thus sufficiently confusing that it is likely to be withdrawn in future releases of the Quintus library, and is retained in this release for backward compatibility with earlier releases of the library. The concatenation functions themselves will remain.