aiml2rs

Tools to convert AIML code into RiveScript code -- and back!

Scripts

The aiml2rs.pl script does all the magic of converting Alice AIML code into RiveScript code.

The rs2aiml.pl script does the opposite: converting RiveScript code back into AIML code.

How to Use

Place all your *.aiml files in the aiml/ directory, and then run the script. It will attempt to convert all the AIML code into RiveScript, and will output the results into the rs/ directory.

For rs2aiml, place your *.rs files in the rs-in/ dirctory, and then run rs2aiml.pl. It will attempt to convert the RS code into AIML, and output the results into aiml-out/.

Caveats

There are some things that this converter won't be able to translate automatically. These are:

1. Embedded <random> tags are not supported. Currently none of the RiveScript interpreters are able to handle embedded random tags either.

2. Complicated conditionals. There are only a couple of these in Alice's AIML set. Simple conditions should work though (ones where there is only one <condition> tag, and it takes up the entirety of the template). Embedded conditions? Forget about it.

For the cases that aiml2rs doesn't handle automatically, it will print out the AIML file name and <pattern> where the anomoly occurred, so that you can go and enter it in manually. aiml2rs won't attempt to generate RiveScript code for triggers that have issues like this.

When converting from RiveScript back to AIML, the following limitations exist:

1. Nested parenthesis groups in triggers will be skipped. These are triggers where you include optionals INSIDE an alternation group, or any similar combination. These kinds of triggers can't be permutated cleanly, so are skipped.

2. Nested <set> tags will be skipped (ie. <set fav<star1>=<star2>>, because AIML doesn't support this.

3. Any conditionals besides a simple <get variable> == value will result in the entire reply being skipped, because AIML doesn't support any kind of condition except == on user variables.

Alice AIML Quirks

There are a number of patterns in the Alice AIML set that are invalid (they contain foreign symbols for example). These patterns will be skipped when converting to RiveScript (a warning is given during the conversion process).

Troubleshooting

If the script crashes with an error that originated from XML::Parser, it is most likely because an invalid character appeared in the AIML input (for example a Unicode symbol). The error message is hard to read, but it will point you to the line number in the AIML document where the error occurred.

The Alice set included in this repo was downloaded on May 9, 2012 and the Unicode symbols in it were removed. If you use your own AIML set and get these errors, you'll have to fix them yourself.