Tutorial Random Selection

Randomness

The <random> tag allows the AIML developer to add a level of 'humanness' to the response to any question. It provides the ability to respond in multiple different ways to the same question. A random tag is made up of one or more 'list items' or <li> tags. Each list tag can contain anything that you would normally place within a template tag.

If the example below we have decided to provide a random response to the question HELLO.

<category>
    <pattern>HELLO</pattern>
    <template>
        <random>
            <li>Hi there!</li>
            <li>Hiya</li>
            <li>Hello there</li>
            <li>Yo!</li>
        </random>
    </template>
</category>

Adding this grammat to your bot and running the console, you can now ask Hello and receive a random response as follows.

Loading, please wait...
No bot root argument set, defaulting to [.]
Y-Bot version 0.0.1, initiated March 14, 2017
Hi, how can I help you today?
>>> Hello
Hiya
>>> Hello
Hi there!
>>> Hello
Yo
>>> Hello
Hi there!

Complex Conditional Statements

The <li> tag can contain any other template tags, which provides the option to build complex conditional and logic statements. In the example below HELLO is expanded to add a little more variance and humanism to the response.

<category>
    <pattern>
        HELLO
    </pattern>
    <template>
        <random>
            <li>Hello!</li>
            <li>Hi there!</li>
            <li>Greetings!</li>
            <li>Hiya!</li>
            <li>
                <think><set name="dayphase"><srai>DAY PHASE</srai></set></think>
                <condition name="dayphase">
                    <li value="Morning">Good morning.</li>
                    <li value="Noon">Good afternoon.</li>
                    <li value="Afternoon">Good afternoon.</li>
                    <li value="Night">Good evening.</li>
                    <li>Hello!</li>
                </condition>
            </li>
        </random>
    </template>
</category>

For a detailed description of the random tag, see the Wiki page Random

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