RiveScript - Rendering Intelligence Very Easily use RiveScript; # Create a new RiveScript interpreter. my $rs = new RiveScript; # Load a directory of replies. $rs->loadDirectory ("./replies"); # Load another file. $rs->loadFile ("./more_replies.rs"); # Stream in some RiveScript code. $rs->stream (q~ + hello bot - Hello, human. ~); # Sort all the loaded replies. $rs->sortReplies; # Chat with the bot. while (1) { print "You> "; chomp (my $msg = <STDIN>); my $reply = $rs->reply ('localuser',$msg); print "Bot> $reply\n"; } RiveScript is a simple trigger/response language primarily used for the creation of chatting robots. It's designed to have an easy-to-learn syntax but provide a lot of power and flexibility. For more information, visit http://www.rivescript.com/

GENERAL
Create a new instance of a RiveScript interpreter. The instance will become its own "chatterbot," with its own set of responses and user variables. You can pass in any global variables here. The two standard variables are: debug - Turns on debug mode (a LOT of information will be printed to the terminal!). Default is 0 (disabled). depth - Determines the recursion depth limit when following a trail of replies that point to other replies. Default is 50. It's recommended that if you set any other global variables that you do so by calling "setGlobal" or defining it within the RiveScript code. This will avoid the possibility of overriding reserved globals. Currently, these variable names are reserved: topics sorted sortsthat thats arrays subs person client bot objects reserved

LOADING AND PARSING
Load a directory full of RiveScript documents. $PATH must be a path to a directory. @EXTS is optionally an array containing file extensions, including the dot. By default @EXTS is "('.rs')". Returns true on success, false on failure. Load a single RiveScript document. $PATH should be the path to a valid RiveScript file. Returns true on success; false otherwise. Stream RiveScript code directly into the module. This is for providing RS code from within the Perl script instead of from an external file. Returns true on success. Call this method after loading replies to create an internal sort buffer. This is necessary for trigger matching purposes. If you fail to call this method yourself, RiveScript will call it once when you request a reply. However, it will complain loudly about it.

CONFIGURATION
Manually create a RiveScript object (a dynamic bit of Perl code that can be provoked in a RiveScript response). $NAME should be a single-word, alphanumeric string. $CODEREF should be a pointer to a subroutine or an anonymous sub. Set one or more global variables, in hash form, where the keys are the variable names and the values are their value. This subroutine will make sure that you don't override any reserved global variables, and warn if that happens. This is equivalent to "! global" in RiveScript code. Set one or more bot variables (things that describe your bot's personality). This is equivalent to "! var" in RiveScript code. Set one or more substitution patterns. The keys should be the original word, and the value should be the word to substitute with it. $rs->setSubstitution ( q{what's} => 'what is', q{what're} => 'what are', ); This is equivalent to "! sub" in RiveScript code. Set a person substitution. This is equivalent to "! person" in RiveScript code. Set a variable for a user. $USER should be their User ID, and %DATA is a hash containing variable/value pairs. This is like "<set>" for a specific user. Get all the variables about a user. If a username is provided, returns a hash reference containing that user's information. Else, a hash reference of all the users and their information is returned. This is like "<get>" for a specific user or for all users. Clears all variables about $USER. If no $USER is provided, clears all variables about all users.

INTERACTION
Fetch a response to $MESSAGE from user $USER. RiveScript will take care of lowercasing, running substitutions, and removing punctuation from the message. Returns a response from the RiveScript brain.

INTERNAL
Prints a debug message to the terminal. Called from within in debug mode. Called internally to report an issue (similar to a warning). If debug mode is active, it will print the issue to STDOUT with a # sign prepended. Otherwise, the issue is sent to STDERR via "warn". This method is called internally to parse a file or streamed RiveScript code. $FILENAME is only there so it can keep internal track of files and line numbers, in case syntax errors appear. Do NOT call this method yourself. This method assumes a few things about the user's input that is taken care of by "reply()". There is no reason to call this method manually. This method takes a raw trigger $TRIGGER and formats it for a matching attempt in a regular expression. It removes "{weight}" tags, processes arrays, processes bot variables and other tags, and returns something ready for the regular expression engine. Process tags in the bot's response. $USER and $MSG are the values originally passed to the reply engine. $REPLY is the bot's raw response. $STARS and $BOTSTARS are array references containing any wildcards matched in a trigger or %Previous command, respectively. Returns a reply with all the tags processed. Formats a message to prepare it for reply matching. Lowercases the string, runs substitutions, and sanitizes what's left. Runs string modifiers on $STRING (uppercase, lowercase, sentence, formal). Runs person substitutions on $STRING. This interpreter tries its best to follow RiveScript standards. Currently it supports RiveScript 2.0 documents. A current copy of the RiveScript working draft is included with this package: see RiveScript::WD. Most of the Perl warnings that the module will emit are self-explanatory, and when parsing RiveScript files, file names and line numbers will be given. This section of the manpage instead outlines error strings that may turn up in responses to the bot's queries.

ERR: Deep Recursion Detected!
The deep recursion depth limit has been reached (a response redirected to a different trigger, which redirected somewhere else, etc.). How to fix: override the global variable "depth". This can be done via "setGlobal" or in the RiveScript code: ! global depth = 100

ERR: No Reply Matched
No match was found for the client's message. How to fix: create a catch-all trigger of just "*". + * - I don't know how to reply to that.

ERR: No Reply Found
A match to the client's message was found, but no response to it was found. This might mean you had a set of conditionals after it, and no "-Reply" to fall back on, and every conditional returned false. How to fix: make sure you have at least one "-Reply" to every "+Trigger", even if you don't expect that the "-Reply" will ever be used.

[ERR: Can't Modify Non-Numeric Variable $var]
You called a math tag on a variable, and the current value of the variable contains something that isn't a number. How to fix: verify that the variable you're working with is a number. If necessary, reset the variable via "<set>".

[ERR: Math Can't "add" Non-Numeric Value $value]
("add" may also be sub, mult, or div). You tried to run a math function on a variable, but the value you used wasn't a number. How to fix: verify that you're adding, subtracting, multiplying, or dividing using numbers.

[ERR: Can't Divide By Zero]
A "<div>" tag was found that attempted to divide a variable by zero. How to fix: make sure your division isn't dividing by zero. If you're using a variable to provide the divisor, validate that the variable isn't zero by using a conditional. * <get divisor> == 0 => The divisor is zero so I can't do that. - <div myvar=<get divisor>>I divided the variable by <get divisor>.

[ERR: Object Not Found]
RiveScript attempted to call an object that doesn't exist. This may be because a syntax error in the object prevented Perl from evaluating it, or the object was written in a different programming language. How to fix: verify that the called object was loaded properly. You will receive notifications on the terminal if the object failed to load for any reason. RiveScript::WD - A current snapshot of the Working Draft that defines the standards of RiveScript. <http://www.rivescript.com/> - The official homepage of RiveScript. Version 1.12 - Initial beta release for a RiveScript 2.00 parser. Casey Kirsle, http://www.cuvou.com/ bot, chatbot, chatterbot, chatter bot, reply, replies, script, aiml, alpha RiveScript - Rendering Intelligence Very Easily Copyright (C) 2008 Casey Kirsle This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA