Classes

The current_class/1 predicate is used to ask whether a class is currently defined or to get the names of all currently defined classes.

The class_superclass/2 predicate is used to test whether one class is a superclass of another, or to find a class's superclasses, or to find a class's subclasses, or to find all subclass-superclass pairs. The class_ancestor/2 predicate is used in the same ways for the ancestor relation between currently defined classes.

As an example, the following goal finds all the ancestors of each currently defined class.

     | ?- setof(C-As,
     	   (current_class(C),
     	    setof(A, class_ancestor(C,A), As)),
     	   L).
     

It binds L to a list of terms of the form Class-AncestorList, with one term for each currently defined class.

Arguably, this predicate violates the principle of information hiding, by letting you ask about how a class is defined. Therefore, you should generally avoid it. It may be useful, however, in debugging and in building programmer support tools.