Flowpattern doesn't exist - prolog

Question

I have been working on a code in prolog for a while now and it is near compiling worthy and all my ideas seem to be solid so it should work when it compiles. It is a program that consults a database file for a list of clauses and then it awaits for a query by the user which it will then pick what information it needs from the sentence and query the database appropriately but there is a block of code that keeps giving me errors complaining that the flowpattern doesn't exist in the standard predicate this may be a silly question but even with all the looking into this I have done i can't find out how to fix this problem if someone could help me out or point me in the right direction that would be greatly appreciated.
Here is the block of code that gives the error:
loop(STR):-
scan(STR,LIST),
filter(LIST,LISroT1),
pars(LIST1,LIST2),
fail.
loop(STR):- STR >< "",readquery(L),loop(L).
readquery(QUERY):-nl,nl,write("Query: "),readln(QUERY).
scan(STR,[TOK|LIST]):-
fronttoken(STR,SYMB,STR1),!,
upper_lower(SYMB,TOK),
scan(STR1,LIST).
the specific line that the compiler complains about is fronttoken(STR,SYMB,STR),!,
any help will be apreaciated thanks!

Answer 1

Since we are looking at an "ex[c]er[p]t" of the code, it's hard to be sure what is going wrong, but the the given evidence points to this: loop/1 is being called before readquery/1 can do its work to populate (bind) the argument STR to loop/1.
Notice that loop/1 calls itself (recursively), and does so in a repeat/fail pattern. But the first time loop/1 runs, there's no indication in the code shown of how argument STR would get populated.
A clearer (more self-contained) code snippet would be like this:
loop :-
readquery(STR),
scan(STR,LIST),
filter(LIST,LISroT1),
pars(LIST1,LIST2),
fail.
loop :- loop.
This makes it clear that predicate loop doesn't actually return any result (and the given code snippet isn't complete enough to make clear what the program as a whole accomplishes). It assumes that the clauses ahead of fail in loop are deterministic, so that in failing, control passes through to the second (recursive) clause of loop/0. If this is not the case, the determinism could be forced by wrapping each call inside once/1.