Tutorial List Processing

The ability to process a string of words individually is a key component of any language parsing tool and AIML is no different. AIML provides 2 tags to split and combine single words into a string of individual letters separated by spaces, and then 2 functions which operate on any string of words or letters separated by strings.

• explode - Convert a single word into a string of individual letters separated by spaces.
• implode - Take a string of letters or words separated by spaces and combine into a single string with no spaces.
• first - Return the first element of a string of space-separated words.
• rest - Return all but the first element of a string of space-separated words.

Explode

Convert a single word into a string of individual letters separated by spaces.

<category>
    <pattern>WHAT ARE THE LETTERS OF *</pattern>
    <template>
        <explode><star /></explode>
    </template>
</category>

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>>> WHAT ARE THE LETTERS OF IBM
I B M

Implode

Take a string of letters or words separated by spaces and combine into a single string with no spaces.

<category>
    <pattern>IMPLODE </pattern>
    <template>
        <implode><star /></implode>
    </template>
</category>

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>>> IMPLODE I B M
IBM

First

Return the first element of a string of space-separated words.

<category>
    <pattern>FIRST WORD OF *</pattern>
    <template>
        <first><star /></first>
    </template>
</category>

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>>> FIRST WORD OF THE QUICK BROWN FOX
THE

Rest

Return all but the first element of a string of space-separated words.

<category>
    <pattern>EVERYTHING BUT THE FIRST WORD OF * </pattern>
    <template>
        <rest><star /></rest>
    </template>
</category>

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>>> Everything but the first word of the quick brown fox
quick brown fox

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