[alicebot-developer] Implementing the <system> tag

[Dr. Rich Wallace]

My feeling is that, since hardly any AIML interpreters implement the
<system> tag at all, you should be allowed wide latitude in your
interpretation of the spec.  I think I had in mind the SETL system call in
the early implementations of Program B, which assumed an underlying Unix
shell and a command that would return a bunch of text.  One issue not
addressed by the spec is timeouts.  You wouldn't want your AIML
interpreter to hang on a bad <system> call.




> According to the AIML standard, the <system> tag
> "instructs the AIML interpreter to pass its content
> (with any appropriate preprocessing, as noted above)
> to the system command interpreter of the local machine
> on which the AIML interpreter is running". I know
> that, by "system command interpreter", the author
> meant the underlying SO command interpreter, such as
> Windows's cmd or Linux's Bash. But how much must a
> complying AIML parser stick to that interpretation?
>
> One of my concerns for ChatterBean (the AIML parser
> formerly known as ProgramJ) is platform-independency;
> I wouldn't like my AIML files to be dependant on what
> command interpreter the underlying SO uses. So I
> embedded a BeanShell (http://www.beanshell.org/)
> interpreter into ChatterBean, and coded my AIML parser
> so the contents of the <system> tag will be passed to
> it.
>
> The BeanShell provides all the expected commands, such
> as dir, cd, rm, etc, and you can run external programs
> (even non-Java) through it. Other than its syntax,
> which deviates a little from what is normally found on
> comand-line consoles, it doesn't differ much from the
> usual shell interpreter. All things considered, I
> think this is a really nice solution, but is it
> standard-compliant? Or am I demanded to pass the
> contents of the <system> tag to the SO's /standard/
> command interpreter?
>
> --
> Ja mata ne.
> Helio Perroni Filho
>
>
>
>
>
>
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-- 
Dr. Rich
W A L L A C E
ALICE A.I. Foundation
drwallace@www.alicebot.org
Winner, Loebner Prize 2000, 2001, 2004