Chatterbox

Chatterbox Challenge

Instructions

• Test time: up to you
• Feel free to use google, your notes, books, etc but work on your own
• You'll almost certainly need to google some things. This is deliberate.
• In particular you'll want to read up on "Regular Expressions"
• Please ensure that all your code is committed to a repo named 'chatterbox'

Tasks:

First place the chatbot below in a file such as 'chatbot.rb', run it from the command line and then experiment chatting with it:

def get_response(input)
  key = RESPONSES.keys.select {|k| /#{k}/ =~ input }.sample
  /#{key}/ =~ input
  response = RESPONSES[key]
  response.nil? ? 'sorry?' : response % { c1: $1, c2: $2}
end
RESPONSES = { 'goodbye' => 'bye',
'sayonara' => 'sayonara',
'the weather is (.)' => 'I hate it when it's %{c1}',
'I love (.)' => 'I love %{c1} too',
'I groove to (.) and (.)' => 'I love %{c1} but I hate %{c2}'}
puts "Hello, what's your name?"
name = gets.chomp
puts "Hello #{name}"
while(input = gets.chomp) do
puts get_response(input)
end

It should go something like this:

→ ruby chatbot.rb 
Hello, what's your name?
Dan
Hello Dan
the weather is clement
I hate it when it's clement
I love noodles
I love noodles too
I groove to funk and soul
I love funk but I hate soul
goodbye
bye

1. add at least five more responses so that the bot has a bigger range of conversation
2. add at least another two more responses that use regex capture groups - that's the %{c1} being replaced with whatever matched the brackets (.*) in the regular expression. In Ruby regex capture groups are stored in $1, $2 etc after a regex match takes place
3. extend the bot so that there is a key word, e.g. "quit" that will end the session
4. add a prompt in front of each sentence to indicate if either the person or the bot is talking
5. make the bot and the person's chat different colours
6. extend the bot so that it can handle more than two regular expression capture groups
7. extend the bot to that the user can add new kinds of responses through the chat interaction
8. extend the bot so that the set of responses is saved to a file and reloaded when the bot restarts

Resources:

• Ruby Regular Expressions Tutorial
• Ruby Regex Cheat Sheet
• Eliza Chat Bot