[alicebot-general] Response order

[Dr. Rich Wallace]

Hi Troy, one simple solution would be to change the * A$$ pattern to _
A$$, because the _ has higher matching priority in AIML.
(we all know that you can't have $ in patterns, but the example is
good because it shows a case where one keyword has priority over
another).

But generally speaking, there is a kind of "keyword priority problem"
in AIML.  The typical technique for detecting keywords in AIML is to
use 4 categories per keyword:

<pattern>_ KEY</pattern>
<template><srai>KEY</srai></template>

<pattern>_ KEY _</pattern>
<template><srai>KEY</srai></template>

<pattern>KEY _</pattern>
<template><srai>KEY</srai></template>

and finally

<pattern>KEY</pattern>
<template>The answer.</template>

The problem arises when you have two or more keys that have an
ordering, like your example of FRIEND and A$$.  You want to say that
the keyword A$$ "comes first".  But if a sentence contains both
keywords, AIML makes no assumptions over which will match first, if
the mathcing patterns either both contain a prefix _ or are both
atomic.  (This statement should be a little more complicated, because
as your example shows you can create a priority problem even if you
are using a * prefix to detect keywords).

Perhaps it should.

In this example, the patterns _ FRIEND _ and _ A$$ create a priority
problem.  Whichever one is picked as the first match, depends on the
hashing algorithm used in the root Nodemapper.

Some people have solved the keyword priority problem by applying a
pre-processor to the AIML input, which will look for any of the "bad
keywords" and, if found, replace the whole AIML input with a special
pattern like "BAD WORD".

Yours sincerely,

Dr. Rich Wallace




On 2/2/07, Troy Vinson <troy.vinson at dal.tribalddb.com> wrote:
> In need of an AIML suggestion concerning ordering of a match or
> pre-scanning a sentence.  Given these two patterns:
>
> <category>
>    <pattern>
>        * FRIEND *
>    </pattern>
>    <template>
>        <srai>
>            FRIEND RESPONSE
>        </srai>
>    </template>
> </category>
>
> <category>
>    <pattern>
>        * A$$
>    </pattern>
>    <template>
>        <srai>
>            BADWORD RESPONSE
>        </srai>
>    </template>
> </category>
>
>
> And the input "my friend can kiss my a$$".  The desire is to have the
> pattern match and send a response for BADWORD RESPONSE instead of FRIEND
> RESPONSE.
>
> Any help would be greatly appreciated.
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