Yep, I don’t deny that what you are doing is clever and might even be fun.

I was thinking maybe use PHP and run an arithmetic service, you could use GET/POST to submit to it. I was thinking of bending the rules for the AIML 2.0 <oob> tag. Or something like that, I think there was a new <search> tag, maybe that could be used.

Food for thought anyway, keep on bending

Having just looked, I don’t think the <search> tag could be used like that - oh well.

The big limitation to using any sort of math functions, arbitrary or otherwise, with an AIML bot is that the AIML “language” is actually nothing more than a database schema, and trying to do math with a database is a little like using laundry hampers to make music. Sure, it’s possible, but not very practical.

In order to have a chatbot that both uses AIML categories and do math, you really need an interpreter that can do the math separately, and then inject the math results back into the input stream. If the AIML interpreter can handle custom AIML tags (such as <add>, <subtract>, <multiply> etc.), then some pretty amazing things can be accomplished. Program O is designed to handle such custom tags, but in order to use them, you need to write PHP functions to parse them. This isn’t incredibly hard, mind you, but it’s not exactly beginner’s level stuff, either.

Yep that’s why once I have finished with my AIML 1.0 interpreter I am going to add a load of custom tags like that. Maybe include AIML 2.0 as well. Should be fun

It’s really interesting what lengths people go to for getting pure AIML to do complicated things like that (dynamically solving arithmetic problems). In RiveScript I’m just like, “write some Perl/Python/JS code to do that”—possibly a bad habit picked up from RunABot’s AIML where they had callable “programs” you could use with the <system> tag to do complex tasks like look up the weather or get movie showtimes.

On the topic of recursion depth limits, I’ve always had a default setting of 50 in rivescript.

Noah Petherbridge - Nov 26, 2014:

It’s really interesting what lengths people go to for getting pure AIML to do complicated things like that (dynamically solving arithmetic problems).

I guess that just shows what a versatile language it is. With AIML, you don’t need to write Perl/Python/JS code to do it.

Steve Worswick - Nov 27, 2014:

I guess that just shows what a versatile language it is. With AIML, you don’t need to write Perl/Python/JS code to do it.

Perhaps not, but it would sure make it easier.

@Noah, while the <system> tag is useful and powerful, it’s also VERY dangerous, in that it can conceivably accept any system command, not just calls to other scripts or programs. One could potentially format the system drive, or ... Well, formatting the system drive is pretty close to the worst, so I’ll leave it at that. If memory serves, Pandorabots removed support for that tag, and I’ve also never put in support for it in Program O (though there IS support for custom tags, so anyone with the know-how and desire could easily support it with their own installations).