declarative syntax

[Johann Hibschman <jhibschman@...>]

Has anyone thought much about doing declarative-style, logic-like 
programming in Lua?  I know the syntax is supposedly good for such 
things, but has anyone actually done a backward-chaining engine for 
Lua?

I want to put together a usable declarative syntax for database and 
filesystem updates, something where I can merge 'primitive' tests, 
like:

function last_modified (f) ... end    -- get the last-modified date
function in_database (rec) ... end    -- check the database

with rules for actions

if not in_database (X) and need_data (X) then
   get_and_put_in_database (X)
end

and statements of the state of the world

need_data_for_all {June, July, August, September}

and so on.

I can handle writing your basic horribly-inefficient backward-chaining 
engine.  I'd have to look up those silly predicate logic terms, but 
everything is small enough that half-remembered stuff from Intro to AI 
should be good enough.

What I am having problems with is figuring out how to write those "if" 
rules in a way that is pretty and readable enough to make the project 
worthwhile.

Any suggestions?

-Johann