Tutorial Getting Started

AIML XML Files

All AIML files start the same way, with an XML declaration and a root level tag

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<aiml version="2.0">
</aiml>

Basic Question and Answer

When you boil it down to the basics, all AIML interactions are made up of 2 parts, a question and an answer. Each interaction is called a 'category', the question is a 'pattern' and the 'answer' is a template. These take the form like

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<aiml version="2.0">
    <category>
        <pattern>HELLO</pattern>
        <template>Hi there!</template>
    <category>
</aiml>

AIML uses the pattern to match the incoming text you type into Y-Bot, and if it finds a match it executes and prints out the template. Running the bot with the above grammar and entering Hello as a question will show the following response

Loading, please wait...
No bot root argument set, defaulting to [/Users/keithsterling/Documents/Development/Python/Projects/AIML/program-y/bots/y-bot]
Y-Bot version 0.0.1, initiated March 14, 2017
Hi, how can I help you today?
>>> Hello
Hi there!
>>> 

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