fact from FOLDOC

fact

<artificial intelligence, programming>

The kind of clause used in logic programming which has no subgoals and so is always true (always succeeds). E.g.

 wet(water).
 male(denis).

This is in contrast to a rule which only succeeds if all its subgoals do. Rules usually contain logic variables, facts rarely do, except for oddities like "equal(X,X).".

Last updated: 1996-10-20

Nearby terms:

face-to-face ♦ Facile ♦ facsimile ♦ FACT ♦ fact ♦ factor ♦ factorial ♦ FAD ♦ failback

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