1.4.2. Consulting a
file
Now that you have created a file, you need to inform Prolog of its
contents. You do this by consulting the file. There are two ways to do
this.
First, use the mouse to select the SWI-Prolog window in which Prolog is
running. Then, type either
| ?- consult(family).
or
| ?- [family].
Note: It is conventional to give Prolog source files the extension
.pl. SWI-Prolog knows about this, so you do
not need to give the full filename and extension when consulting it. In fact, if
you do type consult(test.pl). or
[test.pl]., you will receive an
error message for your pains!
If your file contains no errors, you should
receive a message telling you that the file has been consulted successfully. You
are now in a position to get Prolog to do some work.