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Question-1. How do you debug Mercury programs?
Answer-1: Using mdb (Mercury Debugger) or tracing.
Question-2. Why use Mercury over Prolog?
Answer-2: Mercury offers better performance, static typing, and explicit determinism handling.
Question-3. What is Mercury?
Answer-3: Mercury is a logic-functional programming language designed for high-performance declarative programming.
Question-4. Who developed Mercury?
Answer-4: Mercury was developed at the University of Melbourne by Zoltan Somogyi and his team.
Question-5. What programming paradigms does Mercury support?
Answer-5: Mercury supports logic, functional, and declarative programming paradigms.
Question-6. How is Mercury different from Prolog?
Answer-6: Mercury enforces strong static typing, determinism, and has better optimization compared to Prolog.
Question-7. What is the primary goal of Mercury?
Answer-7: To provide a high-performance and reliable declarative programming language with strong typing and determinism.
Question-8. What type of typing does Mercury use?
Answer-8: Mercury uses strong static typing.
Question-9. What is a mode in Mercury?
Answer-9: A mode defines the input/output behavior of a predicate, specifying which arguments must be given and which are computed.
Question-10. How does Mercury handle determinism?
Answer-10: Mercury uses determinism categories like det, semidet, multi, nondet, and erroneous to specify behavior.
Question-11. How do you declare a predicate in Mercury?
Answer-11: Using :- pred followed by the predicate signature, e.g., :- pred factorial(int, int).
Question-12. How do you implement a predicate in Mercury?
Answer-12: Using :- mode and :- pred, then defining it with :- implementation.
Question-13. What is the purpose of :- mode in Mercury?
Answer-13: It specifies how arguments should be used (input/output).
Question-14. What are the common modes in Mercury?
Answer-14: in, out, di (destructive input), and uo (unique output).
Question-15. How does Mercury handle higher-order programming?
Answer-15: Mercury supports higher-order functions using function types and lambda expressions.
Question-16. What is a functional type in Mercury?
Answer-16: A functional type allows defining functions, e.g., :- func square(int) = int.
Question-17. How do you write a recursive function in Mercury?
Answer-17: Similar to other functional languages, using base and recursive cases.
Question-18. What is determinism in Mercury?
Answer-18: It defines the number of valid solutions a predicate can have.
Question-19. What determinism type ensures exactly one solution?
Answer-19: det (deterministic) ensures exactly one solution.
Question-20. What determinism type allows zero or one solutions?
Answer-20: semidet (semi-deterministic) allows either zero or one solutions.
Question-21. What determinism type allows multiple solutions?
Answer-21: multi (multi-deterministic) allows multiple solutions.
Question-22. What determinism type allows failure?
Answer-22: nondet (non-deterministic) can succeed multiple times or fail.
Question-23. How do you declare a list in Mercury?
Answer-23: Using list(T), e.g., list(int).
Question-24. How do you construct a list in Mercury?
Answer-24: Using `[Head
Question-25. How do you append two lists in Mercury?
Answer-25: Using list.append(List1, List2).
Question-26. How do you perform pattern matching in Mercury?
Answer-26: Using `Head
Question-27. How do you define a user-defined type in Mercury?
Answer-27: Using :- type, e.g., :- type color ---> red ; green ; blue.
Question-28. What is a fact in Mercury?
Answer-28: A fact is a rule with no body, used to define static knowledge.
Question-29. What is a rule in Mercury?
Answer-29: A rule is a clause defining a predicate with conditions.
Question-30. How do you define a conditional statement in Mercury?
Answer-30: Using if-then-else, e.g., X = (if Y > 0 then "Positive" else "Negative").
Question-31. How do you define a module in Mercury?
Answer-31: Using :- module ModuleName.
Question-32. How do you import a module in Mercury?
Answer-32: Using :- import_module ModuleName.
Question-33. What is the default execution mode in Mercury?
Answer-33: Mercury runs in a strict evaluation mode by default.
Question-34. What is a lambda function in Mercury?
Answer-34: A function defined inline using func(X) = X * X.
Question-35. How do you perform input/output in Mercury?
Answer-35: Using the io module, e.g., io.write_string("Hello", !IO).
Question-36. How does Mercury handle side effects?
Answer-36: Using the io state variable, represented as !IO.
Question-37. How do you read input in Mercury?
Answer-37: Using io.read_line_as_string(Result, !IO).
Question-38. What is the difference between func and pred in Mercury?
Answer-38: func defines a function returning a value, while pred defines predicates with possible multiple solutions.
Question-39. What is tail recursion in Mercury?
Answer-39: A recursive function where the recursive call is the last operation in the function.
Question-40. How does Mercury optimize tail-recursive functions?
Answer-40: Mercury automatically transforms them into loops for better performance.
Question-41. What is backtracking in Mercury?
Answer-41: The ability to explore multiple solutions in a non-deterministic manner.
Question-42. How do you define an accumulator in Mercury?
Answer-42: Using an extra parameter to store computed values across recursive calls.
Question-43. What is a unique mode in Mercury?
Answer-43: di (destructive input) and uo (unique output) enforce single-use references for safety.
Question-44. What is DCG in Mercury?
Answer-44: Definite Clause Grammars (DCG) are used for parsing and grammar representation.
Question-45. How do you implement DCG in Mercury?
Answer-45: Using --> notation in predicate definitions.
Question-46. How do you compile a Mercury program?
Answer-46: Using mmc filename.m.
Question-47. How do you run a Mercury program?
Answer-47: Using ./filename after compiling.
Question-48. What are Mercury's backends?
Answer-48: Mercury supports multiple backends, including C, Java, and .NET.
Question-49. How does Mercury integrate with C?
Answer-49: Using pragma foreign_code and pragma foreign_proc.
Question-50. How do you handle errors in Mercury?
Answer-50: Using require predicates and assertions.
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