You can consult prolog files by rightclicking on them in the Project Explorer. The icon of a file will be changed, depending on the state of the file.

• File is not consulted (Prolog or QLF File)
• File is consulted and up-to-date (Prolog or QLF File)
• File is consulted, but it's content changed since then ¹⁾ (Prolog or QLF File)
• Folder contains files which are consulted

The PDT offers the possibility to mark prolog files as “entry points”. These are typically loadfiles, which consult all important Prolog files of the project.

To mark a file as entry point right click on it and select “Prolog Developement Tools” → “Mark as Entry Point”. If you use the automated load file creation, the generated file will be an entry point by default (you can change this in the generation wizard).

If a file is marked as entry point you have the following advantages:

• File will be highlighted with an icon (which will be saved persistently in the workspace, not depending on the current Prolog process and still available after a restart of eclipse).
• If the file is consulted in your current process, the fact “pdt_entry_point(Filename)” will be added. This might be useful for dead code analysis (e.g. files which aren't loaded from an entry point are dead code).

In the preferences for the PDT Console you can change the behaviour on the restart of a process. One of the options is, to only reconsult files which are marked as an entry point. This should be the default behaviour. You can have a “fresh” and empty process and still have all important predicates, without reconsulting them manually.

An external file is a file that are not stored in or imported into your Eclipse workspace.

If an external file is opened in the Prolog editor (e.g. via edit/1), a reference to it will be included into the “External Prolog Files” project, thus making it virtual part of your workspace. This provides the opportunity to set breakpoints, show warning and error markers etc. also for external files.

Th “External Prolog Files” project only contains links. Deleting these links doesn't affect the real files. It is safe to delete any file / folder in it or even the complete “External Prolog Files” project.