# The most stupid question about interactive SWI prolog

**URL:** <https://swi-prolog.discourse.group/t/the-most-stupid-question-about-interactive-swi-prolog/4455>\
**Category:** Help!\
**Created:** [September 17, 2021, 12:45pm UTC](https://swi-prolog.discourse.group/t/the-most-stupid-question-about-interactive-swi-prolog/4455 "2021-09-17T12:45:08Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 5

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**Author:** ![jan](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/swi-prolog.discourse.group/jan/32/4_2.png) [@jan](https://swi-prolog.discourse.group/u/jan)\
**Post date:** [September 17, 2021, 1:21pm UTC](https://swi-prolog.discourse.group/t/the-most-stupid-question-about-interactive-swi-prolog/4455/5 "2021-09-17T13:21:14Z")

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> [@EricGT](#):
>
> ```prolog
> ?- 
> | .
> 
> ERROR: Stream user_input:287:6 Syntax error: Unexpected end of clause
> ?- 
> 
> ```

That works. The `| ` prompt is a _continuation_ prompt telling you the input is incomplete. So, you can just keep typing, e.g.

```prolog
?- <return>
| write(hello).
hello
true.
?- 

```

Another popular trick if you use , (comma) rather than . (dot) by accident is to add `true.`, e.g.,

```prolog
?- write(hello),
| true.
hello
true.
?- 

```

On some installations pressing ^C (control C) and `a` (abort) also works. It depends on the input method (plain terminal, GNU readline, BSD libedit, embedding in Emacs, ECliPSe, etc.).

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