I wrote this small program in Prolog.
odd_even_flip(odd, even).
odd_even_flip(even, odd).
% flip_one, for A = a, B = b, P = [a, .., b, ..], gives M = [b, .., a, ..]
flip_one(A, B, P, M) :-
append([A|As], [B|Bs], P),
append([B], As, L),
append([A], Bs, R),
append(L, R, M).
permutation_parity([X|L], [X|P], R) :- permutation_parity(L, P, R).
% abc
permutation_parity([X|L], [Y|P], R) :-
X \= Y,
flip_one(Y, X, [Y|P], M),
permutation_parity([X|L], M, Res),
odd_even_flip(Res, R).
permutation_parity([], [], even).
I expect it to find the parity of a permutation P of list L. The few queries that assert that a given permutation of a given list is indeed even or odd worked fine.
However, from my experience with Prolog, I would expect that permutation_parity([a, b, c], X, Y). would show me all permutations of [a, b, c] but that is not happening.
Rather, I get X = [a, b, c], Y = even. and that is all.
I tried to add member(Y, L) in the rule that follows %abc as I was thinking that will help Prolog to know how to instantiate X in permutation_parity([a, b, c], X, Y) but that helped to no avail.
If someone could help me see what I am missing it would be great. Thanks in advance.
You only need to use unification to correctly instantiate the variable X (assuming that permutation_parity/3 is called with a proper list as its first argument). So I suggest you modify your code as follows:
permutation_parity([], [], even).
permutation_parity([X|Xs], [X|Zs], P) :-
permutation_parity(Xs, Zs, P).
permutation_parity([X|Xs], Zs, P) :-
permutation_parity(Xs, Ys, Q),
flip_first([X|Ys], Zs),
odd_even_flip(Q, P).
flip_first(L0, L1) :-
append([X|Xs], [Y|Ys], L0),
append([Y|Xs], [X|Ys], L1).
odd_even_flip(odd, even).
odd_even_flip(even, odd).
Examples:
?- permutation_parity([a,b,c], Permutation, Parity).
Permutation = [c, a, b],
Parity = even ;
Permutation = [b, c, a],
Parity = even ;
Permutation = [b, a, c],
Parity = odd ;
Permutation = [c, b, a],
Parity = odd ;
Permutation = [a, c, b],
Parity = odd ;
Permutation = [a, b, c],
Parity = even.
?- permutation_parity([a,b,c], [a,c,b], Parity).
Parity = odd ;
false.
?- permutation_parity([a,b,c], Permutation, even).
Permutation = [c, a, b] ;
Permutation = [b, c, a] ;
Permutation = [a, b, c].
EDIT
perm_parity(L0, L1, P) :-
same_length(L0, L1),
permutation_parity(L0, L1, P).
The predicate same_length/2 is defined in SWI-Prolog as follows:
same_length([], []).
same_length([_|T1], [_|T2]) :-
same_length(T1, T2).
Example:
?- perm_parity(L, [a,b,c], P).
L = [b, c, a],
P = even ;
L = [c, a, b],
P = even ;
L = [b, a, c],
P = odd ;
L = [c, b, a],
P = odd ;
L = [a, c, b],
P = odd ;
L = [a, b, c],
P = even.