[NOTE] You might have found this while looking for a predicate to read input from a file or the user. Quite likely this is not what you need in this case. This predicate is for reading a Prolog term which may span multiple lines and must end in a full stop (dot character followed by a layout character). The predicates for reading and writing Prololg terms are particularly useful for storing Prolog data in a file or transferring them over a network communication channel (socket) to another Prolog process. The libraries provide a wealth of predicates to read data in other formats. See e.g., library(readutil), library(pure_input) or libraries from the extension packages to read XML, JSON, YAML, etc.