Soufflé is an

open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use and view the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open source model is a decentrali ...

parallel logic programming language, influenced by

Datalog Datalog is a declarative logic programming language. While it is syntactically a subset of Prolog, Datalog generally uses a bottom-up rather than top-down evaluation model. This difference yields significantly different behavior and properties ...

. Soufflé includes both an interpreter and a compiler that targets parallel C++. Soufflé has been used to build static analyzers, disassemblers, and tools for binary reverse engineering. Soufflé is considered by academic researchers to be high-performance and "state of the art," and is often used in benchmarks in academic papers.

Programming examples

Given a set of edges in a

graph Graph may refer to: Mathematics *Graph (discrete mathematics), a structure made of vertices and edges **Graph theory, the study of such graphs and their properties *Graph (topology), a topological space resembling a graph in the sense of discret ...

, the following program computes the set of (directed) paths between any two nodes. This is also known as the

transitive closure In mathematics, the transitive closure of a homogeneous binary relation on a set (mathematics), set is the smallest Relation (mathematics), relation on that contains and is Transitive relation, transitive. For finite sets, "smallest" can be ...

of the edge

relation Relation or relations may refer to: General uses * International relations, the study of interconnection of politics, economics, and law on a global level * Interpersonal relationship, association or acquaintance between two or more people * ...

. .decl edge(x:number, y:number) .input edge .decl path(x:number, y:number) .output path path(x, y) :- edge(x, y). path(x, y) :- path(x, z), edge(z, y).

Features

* An

interpreter Interpreting is translation from a spoken or signed language into another language, usually in real time to facilitate live communication. It is distinguished from the translation of a written text, which can be more deliberative and make use o ...

and a

compiler In computing, a compiler is a computer program that Translator (computing), translates computer code written in one programming language (the ''source'' language) into another language (the ''target'' language). The name "compiler" is primaril ...

that targets parallel C++ (C++ that uses

OpenMP OpenMP is an application programming interface (API) that supports multi-platform shared-memory multiprocessing programming in C, C++, and Fortran, on many platforms, instruction-set architectures and operating systems, including Solaris, ...

). Both the interpreter and compiler use semi-naïve evaluation. * Stratified negation * Aggregation * Automatic

index Index (: indexes or indices) may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional entities * Index (''A Certain Magical Index''), a character in the light novel series ''A Certain Magical Index'' * The Index, an item on the Halo Array in the ...

selection * Specialized parallel data structures, including disjoint-sets,

B-tree In computer science, a B-tree is a self-balancing tree data structure that maintains sorted data and allows searches, sequential access, insertions, and deletions in logarithmic time. The B-tree generalizes the binary search tree, allowing fo ...

s, and

trie In computer science, a trie (, ), also known as a digital tree or prefix tree, is a specialized search tree data structure used to store and retrieve strings from a dictionary or set. Unlike a binary search tree, nodes in a trie do not store t ...

s. *

Static typing In computer programming, a type system is a logical system comprising a set of rules that assigns a property called a ''type'' (for example, integer, floating point, string) to every '' term'' (a word, phrase, or other set of symbols). Usu ...

* Records and

algebraic data type In computer programming, especially functional programming and type theory, an algebraic data type (ADT) is a kind of composite data type, i.e., a data type formed by combining other types. Two common classes of algebraic types are product ty ...

s * A

foreign function interface A foreign function interface (FFI) is a mechanism by which a program written in one programming language can call routines or make use of services written or compiled in another one. An FFI is often used in contexts where calls are made into a bin ...

Related tools

In addition to a compiler and an interpreter, the Soufflé project also publishes: * a profiler, * a "provenance"-based

debugger A debugger is a computer program used to test and debug other programs (the "target" programs). Common features of debuggers include the ability to run or halt the target program using breakpoints, step through code line by line, and display ...

, * an "auto-scheduler" (also called a "join optimizer") that chooses efficient

query plan A query plan (or query execution plan) is a sequence of steps used to access data in a SQL relational database management system. This is a specific case of the relational model concept of access plans. Since SQL is declarative, there are typical ...

s based on a profile, as in profile-guided optimization.

Applications

Soufflé has been used to build static analyzers, including: * A

pointer analysis In computer science, pointer analysis, or points-to analysis, is a static code analysis technique that establishes which pointer (computer programming), pointers, or Heap (data structure), heap references, can point to which Variable (computer sci ...

for

Java Java is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea (a part of Pacific Ocean) to the north. With a population of 156.9 million people (including Madura) in mid 2024, proje ...

* A

control-flow analysis In computer science, control-flow analysis (CFA) is a static code analysis, static-code-analysis technique for determining the control flow of a program. The control flow is expressed as a control-flow graph (CFG). For both functional programming ...

for Scheme * Various analyses for

smart contract A smart contract is a computer program or a Transaction Protocol Data Unit, transaction protocol that is intended to automatically execute, control or document events and actions according to the terms of a contract or an agreement. The objective ...

languages It has also been used to build tools for binary analysis, including

reverse engineering Reverse engineering (also known as backwards engineering or back engineering) is a process or method through which one attempts to understand through deductive reasoning how a previously made device, process, system, or piece of software accompl ...

, and

disassembler A disassembler is a computer program that translates machine language into assembly language—the inverse operation to that of an assembler. The output of disassembly is typically formatted for human-readability rather than for input to an asse ...

References

Sources

* *

External links

Project homepage
* {{GitHub, souffle-lang/souffle Logic programming languages High-level programming languages