---
title: 'Improving Prolog programs: Refactoring for Prolog'
url: https://www.emergentmind.com/papers/0702083
type: paper
arxiv_id: '0702083'
arxiv_url: https://arxiv.org/abs/0702083
published: '2007-02-14'
categories:
- cs.SE
---

# Improving Prolog programs: Refactoring for Prolog

## Abstract

Refactoring is an established technique from the object-oriented (OO) programming community to restructure code: it aims at improving software readability, maintainability and extensibility. Although refactoring is not tied to the OO-paradigm in particular, its ideas have not been applied to Logic Programming until now. This paper applies the ideas of refactoring to Prolog programs. A catalogue is presented listing refactorings classified according to scope. Some of the refactorings have been adapted from the OO-paradigm, while others have been specifically designed for Prolog. The discrepancy between intended and operational semantics in Prolog is also addressed by some of the refactorings. In addition, ViPReSS, a semi-automatic refactoring browser, is discussed and the experience with applying ViPReSS to a large Prolog legacy system is reported. The main conclusion is that refactoring is both a viable technique in Prolog and a rather desirable one.