A Guide to Artificial Intelligence with Visual Prolog. Addendum for Version 7.4

Written by Randall Scott

The Book A Guide to Artificial Intelligence with Visual Prolog was written using version 7.2 and tested very rigorously against both the Personal Edition as well as the Commercial Edition. An Addendum on the Visual Prolog Web Site dedicated to this book, was provided to explain how this Book was still valid and quite applicable to version 7.3, with caveats for issues related to version change side-effects that would be helpful.

As it turns out, the Book is still valid with version 7.4, and the same simple Instruction provided for the version 7.3 Addendum can also be used for version 7.4 with a few different version change side effects that will be explained as follows:

 Again, if you hand typed the GAMegaLotto Program in its entirety as instructed by the Book, you should experience no problems what so ever.  On the other hand, if you want to copy the source code for both programs, GAMegaLotto and LottoV2, then a few new things will be experienced. Use the same simple instructions for version 7.3 Addendum for creating new directory paths for the GAMegaLotto and LottoV2 projects, for use with version 7.4; which includes copying and deleting the EXE and OBJ files as instructed in the Addendum for version 7.3. Starting with GAMegaLotto, open the Project ‘gamegalotto.prj6’ in version 7.4 and execute the Build-All option. This is where the new side-effects for version 7.4 will bear out, in that there are some items that will need to be removed when prompted by pop-up Dialog Boxes – just ‘Remove’ them. Your paths may be different then mine, but the items should be the same. They should be:  C:\Program Files\Visual Prolog 7.4 PE\pfc\vpi\vip7vpi.lib

Does not exist – Remove Yes/No

Yes C:\Program Files\Visual Prolog 7.4 PE\pfc\regExp\VIP7regExp2.lib

Does not exist – Remove Yes/No

Yes C:\Program Files\Visual Prolog 7.4 PE\pfc\vpi\vpiEditor\vip7edit.lib

Does not exist – Remove Yes/No

Yes C:\Program Files\Visual Prolog 7.4 PE\pfc\redBlackTree\redBlackTree.pack

Does not exist – Remove Yes/No

Yes  </li> As the Program Builds (you should watch the activity in the message window), you’ll then be questioned through a Dialog Question Box for items that need to be Added. Just click the ‘Add All’ option. While watching the Message window, you should see a couple of blocks of modules added: </li> You will get a few Warnings, but the Program will execute just like the original and as it is suppose to.</li> Then with LottoV2, open the Project ‘LottoV2.prj6’ in version 7.4 and execute the Build-All option. You should have the same items to ‘Remove’ and get the same effects from the ‘Add All’ option; and, the Program will execute as expected. You will get one Warning for both Programs that should be quite obvious: Type Description Filename

</li> </ol>

Note: These procedures worked fine with Microsoft XP; however, while performing it with Microsoft Vista, I received several errors during the first Build-All session, but forcing a second Build-All cleared them all up.