4.11.3 The exception term

Built-in predicates generate exceptions using a term error(Formal, Context). The first argument is the `formal' description of the error, specifying the class and generic defined context information. When applicable, the ISO error term definition is used. The second part describes some additional context to help the programmer while debugging. In its most generic form this is a term of the form context(Name/Arity, Message), where Name/Arity describes the built-in predicate that raised the error, and Message provides an additional description of the error. Any part of this structure may be a variable if no information was present.