Terms are the fundamental data types of PROLOG. They are the building blocks from which Prolog clauses, and commands are constructed. Here we describe the basic term types and their syntax: variable names, integers, floating point numbers, atoms, strings (a unique ÷ PROLOG text data type), lists, byte lists (normally called strings in ’Edinburgh’ parlance) and compound terms.of-line character (carriage return) is treated as a comment.