write/1 cyclic term writes core dump

[flexoron]

| ?- X = (\+X).

cannot display cyclic term for X

yes

| ? X = (\+X), write(X).
\+ \+ \+ \+ \+ \+ \+ \+ \+ \+ \+ \+ \+ \+ \+ \+ \+
:
:
\+ \+ \+ \+ \+ \+Segmentation fault (core dumped)

$

[didoudiaz]

There is no support for cyclic term except the built-in acyclic_term/1. Use it to check if a term is acyclic before printing it else inform the user (it is what does the top-level). BTW, another useful built-in is unify_with_occurs_check/2 which fails instead of creating a cyclic term.

[flexoron]

Thank you. I accept the advice.

But from C programmers point of view, core dumps are only acceptable
if part of the design of the implementation which means that the
application is restart/restorable (for example rerun points are recorded in shared memory).