ERROR No permission to modify static procedure

Hi, I’m sure this is a pathetic noob question.

I have consulted a file that starts with this code:

discontiguous flow/2, taskHasPreConditions/2, stateHasPostConditions/2, state/1, interaction/2.

and it’s giving me an error message

ERROR: c:/users/johna/onedrive/documents/github/dawb/dawb/testbed/data.pl:1:
** No permission to modify static procedure `(discontiguous)/1’**
** Defined at c:/program files/swipl/boot/init.pl:103**

What does this mean, and what should I do?
Thanks all

You should put “:-” in front of the “discontiguous” directive:

:- discontiguous flow/2, taskHasPreConditions/2, stateHasPostConditions/2, state/1, interaction/2.

Without the “:-”, this is interpreted as defining a discontiguous/1 predicate, which is disallowed. If you want to fully understand what’s going on, try this goal:

?- write_canonical((discontiguous flow/2, taskHasPreConditions/2, stateHasPostConditions/2, state/1, interaction/2)).
discontiguous(','(/(flow,2),','(/(taskHasPreConditions,2),','(/(stateHasPostConditions,2),','(/(state,1),/(interaction,2))))))

Brilliant, thanks for your help.

John