Jess (programming language)

Jess is a rule engine for the Java computing platform, written in the Java programming language. It was developed by Ernest Friedman-Hill of Sandia National Laboratories. It is a superset of the CLIPS language. It was first written in late 1995. The language provides rule-based programming for the automation of an expert system, and is often termed as an expert system shell. In recent years, intelligent agent systems have also developed, which depend on a similar ability.

Rather than a procedural paradigm, where one program has a loop that is activated only one time, the declarative paradigm used by Jess applies a set of rules to a set of facts continuously by a process named pattern matching. Rules can modify the set of facts, or can execute any Java code. It uses the Rete algorithm to execute rules.

License

The licensing for Jess is freeware for education and government use, and is proprietary software, needing a license, for commercial use. In contrast, CLIPS, which is the basis and starting code for Jess, is free and open-source software.

Code examples

Code examples:

; is a comment

(bind ?x 100)

; x = 100

(deffunction max (?a ?b)
             (if (> ?a ?b) then ?a else ?b))

(deffacts myroom
          (furniture chair)
          (furniture table)
          (furniture bed)
          )

(deftemplate car
             (slot color)
             (slot mileage)
             (slot value)
             )

(assert (car (color red) (mileage 10000) (value 400)))

Sample code:

(clear)
(deftemplate blood-donor (slot name) (slot type))
(deffacts blood-bank ; put names & their types into [[working memory]]
          (blood-donor (name "Alice")(type "A"))
          (blood-donor (name "Agatha")(type "A"))
          (blood-donor (name "Bob")(type "B"))
          (blood-donor (name "Barbara")(type "B"))
          (blood-donor (name "Jess")(type "AB"))
          (blood-donor (name "Karen")(type "AB"))
          (blood-donor (name "Onan")(type "O"))
          (blood-donor (name "Osbert")(type "O"))
          )
(defrule can-give-to-same-type-but-not-self ; handles A > A, B > B, O > O, AB > AB, but not N1 > N1
         (blood-donor (name ?name)(type ?type))
         (blood-donor (name ?name2)(type ?type2 &:(eq ?type ?type2) &: (neq ?name ?name2) ))
         =>
         (printout t ?name " can give blood to " ?name2 crlf)
         )
(defrule O-gives-to-others-but-not-itself ; O to O cover in above rule
         (blood-donor (name ?name)(type ?type &:(eq ?type "O")))
         (blood-donor (name ?name2)(type ?type2 &: (neq ?type ?type2) &: (neq ?name ?name2) ))
         =>
         (printout t ?name " can give blood to " ?name2 crlf)
         )
(defrule A-or-B-gives-to-AB ; case O gives to AB and AB gives to AB already dealt with
         (blood-donor (name ?name)(type ?type &:(or (eq ?type "A") (eq ?type "B" ))))
         (blood-donor (name ?name2)(type ?type2 &: (eq ?type2 "AB") &: (neq ?name ?name2) ))
         =>
         (printout t ?name " can give blood to " ?name2 crlf)
         )
;(watch all)
(reset)
(run)

References

Further sources

Friedman-Hill, Ernest (2003). Jess in Action: Rule Based Systems in Java. Manning Publications. ISBN 9781930110892. Retrieved March 30, 2012.ISBN 1-930110-89-8

External links

Official website