A beautiful example of disequations at work is due
to [Colmerauer 90]. It addresses the task of tiling a rectangle
with squares of all-different, a priori unknown sizes. Here is a
translation of the original Prolog-III program to clp(Q,R):
%
% from file: library('clpqr/examples/squares')
%
filled_rectangle(A, C) :-
{ A >= 1 },
distinct_squares(C),
filled_zone([-1,A,1], _, C, []).
distinct_squares([]).
distinct_squares([B|C]) :-
{ B > 0 },
outof(C, B),
distinct_squares(C).
outof([], _).
outof([B1|C], B) :-
{ B =\= B1 }, % *** note disequation ***
outof(C, B).
filled_zone([V|L], [W|L], C0, C0) :-
{ V=W,V >= 0 }.
filled_zone([V|L], L3, [B|C], C2) :-
{ V < 0 },
placed_square(B, L, L1),
filled_zone(L1, L2, C, C1),
{ Vb=V+B },
filled_zone([Vb,B|L2], L3, C1, C2).
placed_square(B, [H,H0,H1|L], L1) :-
{ B > H, H0=0, H2=H+H1 },
placed_square(B, [H2|L], L1).
placed_square(B, [B,V|L], [X|L]) :-
{ X=V-B }.
placed_square(B, [H|L], [X,Y|L]) :-
{ B < H, X= -B, Y=H-B }.
There are no tilings with less than nine squares except the trivial one
where the rectangle equals the only square. There are eight solutions
for nine squares. Six further solutions are rotations of the first two.
clp(q) ?- use_module(library('clpqr/examples/squares')).
clp(q) ?- filled_rectangle(A, Squares).
A = 1,
Squares = [1] ? ;
A = 33/32,
Squares = [15/32,9/16,1/4,7/32,1/8,7/16,1/32,5/16,9/32] ? ;
A = 69/61,
Squares = [33/61,36/61,28/61,5/61,2/61,9/61,25/61,7/61,16/61]
Depending on your hardware, the above query may take a few minutes. Supplying the knowledge about the minimal number of squares beforehand cuts the computation time by a factor of roughly four:
clp(q) ?- length(Squares, 9), filled_rectangle(A, Squares).
A = 33/32,
Squares = [15/32,9/16,1/4,7/32,1/8,7/16,1/32,5/16,9/32] ? ;
A = 69/61,
Squares = [33/61,36/61,28/61,5/61,2/61,9/61,25/61,7/61,16/61]