The SWI-Prolog MacOSX app

SWI-Prolog is an open source implementation of the Prolog programming language. SWI-Prolog targets at developing real-world applications. To achieve this, in concentrates on libraries that facilitate interfacing to other software components, networking and multi-threading. SWI-Prolog can be used from the Terminal application, as an standard Mac application started from Finder, under GNU-Emacs or under the Eclipse IDE.

Supported MacOSX versions

MacOS < 10.6 (older than Snow Leopard)

This binary does not run on MacOS prior to Snow Leopard. You can install SWI-Prolog using MacPorts on most versions.

MacOS 10.6 (Snow Leopard)

The app does not work on MacOS 10.6. The command line executables (swipl, swipl-ld) do work. See below. Note that upgrading Snow Leopard or later to Maverics is free of charge.

MacOS 10.7 and later

All features work on these versions of MacOS.

Using the X11 based development tools

The SWI-Prolog development tools, such as the source-level debugger, are based on xpce, SWI-Prolog's native graphics toolkit. This toolkit requires X11, and in particular Xquartz, even on Mac OS X v10.5 to v10.7 where X11 is preinstalled or can be installed as an option. SWI-Prolog's XPCE toolkit is linked against the X11 libraries in /opt/X11, Xquartz version 2.7.11.

The SWI-Prolog app can be executed directly from the disk image, can be installed in /Applications or in any other location, i.e., it is relocatable. The app advertises itself to the launcher as shell for files with extensions .pl and .prolog

Using the commandline tools

The traditional command line tools are included in the app. To access them from the Terminal application, add the directory /Applications/SWI-Prolog.app/Contents/MacOS to $PATH (replace with the actual location if you installed the app in a different location).

The Qt based console for this app is developed by Carlo Capelli.

SWI-Prolog is brought to you by many contributors.