Logtalk requires a backend Prolog compiler that supports both official and de facto Prolog standards. This means, support for the ISO Prolog Core standard plus the following de facto standard predicates:
predicate_property/2setup_call_cleanup/3between/3numbervars/3format/2-3
The setup_call_cleanup/3 predicate is only required for systems providing a compatible threads implementation and for support of some tools features that require checking query determinism. In the second case, it can be replaced by call_cleanup/2 or call_det/2 predicates.
Logtalk coinduction features requires that the backend Prolog compiler supports cyclic terms and either the *->/2 soft-cut control construct or the if/3 soft-cut built-in predicate.
The de facto standard dialect and version_data flags are required. Notably, the version_data flag is used at Logtalk startup to check that its running on a supported Prolog backend version and used by tools such as diagrams and lgtunit to add version information to diagrams and testing log files.
In addition, Logtalk requires basic access to the operating-system (either as Prolog built-in predicates or as library predicates) including:
- expanding a relative path into an absolute path (including paths with environment variables)
- converting between Prolog internal paths and operating-systems paths (if necessary)
- file and directory existence testing
- file size and modification time
- file copying, renaming, and deleting
- file permissions (read, write, execute)
- querying and changing the current working directory
- directory creating and deleting
- current date and time
- access to cpu and wall time
- accessing environment variable values
- querying the process identifier
- computing an atom hash
These operating-system access predicates are used in the Prolog compiler adapter file and in the portable operating-system library.
Convenient features include the de facto standard findall/4 predicate and access via read_term/3 or stream_property/2 to a read term position (line numbers).