LogicWeb: Enhancing the Web with logic programming

Abstract

LogicWeb is a model of the World Wide Web, where Web pages are rephrased as logic programs, and hypertext links are relationships between these programs. A logic language based on LogicWeb has been developed which supports these high-level abstractions for Web programming. We have also implemented a client-side extension to a Web browser for executing applications written in that language. The LogicWeb language is particularly suitable for coding important classes of applications, and this paper considers two in some detail: Web search, and the structuring of Web information using deductive databases. LogicWeb illustrates that logic programming possesses many advantages lor writing Web applications, including the simple representation of information (e.g., as deductive databases or as logic grammars), the ability to write meta-level descriptions (e.g., of pages and the connections between pages), and the encoding of rules and heuristics necessary for "intelligent" behaviour. © 1998 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.