2.11.1.2 Creating a shell script

With the introduction of PrologScript (see section 2.11.1.1), using shell scripts as explained in this section has become redundant for most applications.

Especially on Unix systems and not-too-large applications, writing a shell script that simply loads your application and calls the entry point is often a good choice. A skeleton for the script is given below, followed by the Prolog code to obtain the program arguments. See library library(main) and argv_options/3 for details.

#!/bin/sh

base=<absolute-path-to-source>
SWIPL=swipl

exec $SWIPL "$base/load.pl" -- "$@"

:- use_module(library(main)).
:- initialization(main,main).

main(Argv) :-
    argv_options(Argv, Positional, Options),
    go(Positional, Options).

go(Positional, Options) :-
    ...

On Windows systems, similar behaviour can be achieved by creating a shortcut to Prolog, passing the proper options or writing a .bat file.