In computer science, a rule-based system is used to store and manipulate knowledge to interpret information in a useful way. It is often used in artificial intelligence applications and research. CCTV systems are commonly making use of AI for understanding camera feeds.
Normally, the term rule-based system is applied to systems involving human-crafted or curated rule sets. Rule-based systems constructed using automatic rule inference, such as rule-based machine learning, are normally excluded from this system type.
A classic example of a rule-based system is the domain-specific expert system that uses rules to make deductions or choices.[1] For example, an expert system might help a doctor choose the correct diagnosis based on a cluster of symptoms, or select tactical moves to play a game.
Rule-based systems can be used to perform lexical analysis to compile or interpret computer programs, or in natural language processing.[2]
Rule-based programming attempts to derive execution instructions from a starting set of data and rules. This is a more indirect method than that employed by an imperative programming language, which lists execution steps sequentially.
Logic programming is a programming paradigm which is largely based on formal logic. Any program written in a logic programming language is a set of sentences in logical form, expressing facts and rules about some problem domain. Major logic programming language families include Prolog, answer set programming (ASP) and Datalog. In all of these languages, rules are written in the form of clauses: