yamlAI

Example

data:
  name: "Bot"
  person: "Human"
rules:
  "hi *|hello *|hey *|howdy *": "Hello, @person."
  "what is your name *": "My name is @name"
  "i am called !0 * | my name is !0 *": ":person=0: Okay, @person, I will now call you ?0%!|.%"
  "__unknown": "%What|Huh|What do you mean%?"

I'll explain the details later, but here's an example session with this AI:

1.  You> Hello world
2.  AI> Hello, Human.
3.  You> What is your name?
4.  AI> My name is Bot
5.  You> My name is Zac
6.  AI> Okay, Human, I will now call you zac.
7.  You> Hello
8.  AI> Hello, zac.
9.  You> goodbye
10. AI> Goodbye
  # The program exits.

(Line numbers not included)

On line 1, when I say "Hi", it searches through the rules defined in the YAML. First, it checks the rule defined as hello *|hi *|hey *|howdy *. It splits the rule up into 4 other rules: hello *, hi *, hey * and howdy * and checks each of them against the input text, Hello world. It checks hi *, which obviously doesn't match; it then checks "hello *", which does match because hello matches Hello (case-insensitive) and the asterisk matches anything, so it matches world. Because Hello world matches "hello *", it outputs the string to the right of the definition: "Hello, @person.". The @person evaluates to "Human", because in the data section of the YAML, 'person' is initialized to "Human".

The same kind of thing happens for the rest of the inputs.

Syntax

When defining a rule, like "what is your name *" above, the following syntax applies:

• !0-9 - Matches anything once and saves whatever it matches into the numbered variable from 0 to 9
• x|y - Creates subrules x and y, and matches either
• * - Matches anything until the next definition token matches the next input token
• . - Matches anything once

In outputs, this is the syntax:

• ?0-9 - Loads the variable defined in the rule declaration
• %x|y|z% - Chooses randomly between 'x', 'y' and 'z'
• :x=0: - Sets data field 'x' to variable 0
• ::x=hello:: - Sets data field 'x' to string 'hello'
• @x - Loads the data field named 'x'
• {func arg} - Calls the function 'func' defined in functions.rb and passes it the argument, the rule variables, and the AI's data dictionary
• !clr! - Clears the terminal screen

Getting Started

If you want to just quickly run a chatbot, download the entire repo and run the following commands in Terminal (This is UNIX, however it's probably very similar on Windows):

Firstly, though, you will need to install colorize, which is used for colouring output text, with the following command:

sudo gem install colorize

Leave off sudo if you're on Windows.

cd yamlAI
./main.rb

This should display open a prompt asking for your input.

If you want to make your own chatbot, read the example and syntax sections of this page and try and figure it out from that, or wait for me to make a GitHub Wiki page.