Clorm: An ORM API for Clingo

Introduction

Clorm is a Python library that provides an Object Relational Mapping (ORM) style interface to the Clingo Answer Set Programming (ASP) solver. It allows facts to be asserted to, and extracted from, the ASP solver in an intuitive and easy to use way. The goal of this library is to supplement the existing Clingo API to make it easier to build and maintain Python applications that integrate with Clingo.

When integrating an ASP program into a larger application a typical requirement is to model the problem domain as a statically written ASP program, but then to generate problem instances and process the results dynamically. Clorm makes this integration cleaner, both in terms of code readability but also by making it easier to refactor the python code as the ASP program evolves.

• Works with Python 3.7+ and Clingo 5.4+ (developed on Python 3.9 and Clingo 5.5)

Note

Clorm is now being hosted under the Potassco umbrella (which is the home of Clingo and the other ASP tools). The GitHub and Anaconda namespaces have been changed accordingly.

Contents:

• Installation
  • Installing from a Python package manager
  • Installing from the Potassco PPA
  • Installing from source
• Motivation
  • Object Relational Mapping (ORM)
  • An ORM Interface for Clingo
• Quick Start
  • An Example Scenario
  • The ASP Program
  • The Python Program
  • Defining the Data Model
  • Using the Data Model to Generate Solutions
  • Querying
• Predicates and Fields
  • The Basics
  • Overriding the Predicate Name
  • Nullary Predicates
  • Complex Terms
  • Negative Facts
  • Field Definitions
  • Using Positional Arguments
  • Working with Tuples
  • Debugging Auxiliary Predicates
  • Dealing with Raw Clingo Symbols
  • Combining Field Definitions
  • Dealing with Nested Lists
  • Old Syntax
• Fact Bases and Querying
  • A Container for Facts
  • Querying
• Clingo Solver Integration
  • Wrapper classes
  • Monkey-patching
• Embedding Python into ASP
  • Specifying Type Cast Signatures
  • Specifying a Grounding Context
• Advanced Features
  • Introspection of Predicate Definitions
  • Raw Clingo and Clorm Facts
• Experimental Features
  • Reusable Components
  • JSON Encoding and Decoding
• API Documentation
  • Fields
  • Predicates and complex terms
  • Fact Bases and Queries
  • Query Support Functions
  • Calling Python From an ASP Program
  • Integration with the Solver

Indices and tables

• Index

• Module Index

• Search Page