Edison, a Unix and C friendly Rete based production system

Abstract

This document introduces the architecture and the implementation of a rule based system especially devised to be integrated in the C and UNIX world. Built around the Edison knowledge description language and its translator, the environment features an inference engine using the Rete algorithm as well as a trace mechanism and a debugger. The who set can be used in full autonomy to design an expert system, or it can be integrated into a wider application as a software component. We shall describe the Edison language, its translation, the development environment and the performances of our production system. © 1992, ACM. All rights reserved.