https://howtodoinjava.

com/ai/java-aiml-chatbot-example/

Java chatbot example using aiml library

Last Updated On June 16, 2020

In this Java AIML tutorial, we will learn to create simple chatbot program in Java. A
Chatbot is an application designed to simulate the conversation with human users, especially
over the Internet. Internally it uses any NLP (Natural Language Processing) system to
interpret the human interactions and reply back with meaningful information.

AIML (Artificial Intelligence Markup Language) is an XML dialect for creating natural
language software agents. It contains the basic rules which Natural Language Understanding
(NLU) unit uses internally. It can be think of as a heart of the engine. The more rules we add
in AIML – the more intelligent our Chatbot will be.

It’s important to know the difference between NLP and NLU. NLP refers to all systems that
work together to handle end-to-end interactions between machines and humans in the
preferred language of the human. In other words, NLP lets people and machines talk to each
other “naturally”. NLU is actually a subset of the wider world of NLP. It helps in parsing
unstructured inputs e.g. mispronunciations, swapped words, contractions, colloquialisms, and
other quirks.

Table of Contents

1. Prerequisite
2. Java AIML Chatbot Example
3. Add Custom Patterns in Chatbot
4. Summary

1. Prerequisite
 Reference AIML Implementation – To get started, we shall use an already working
reference application. There is one such java based implementation called program-
ab hosted on google-code repository. Download the program-ab latest distribution
from google code repository.
 Eclipse and Maven – for coding and development.

2. Java AIML Chatbot Example

Follow these simple steps for building your first Chatbot application.

2.1. Download Unzip the program-ab distribution

We need to first unzip the program-ab distribution to a convenient folder. We will need to
take Ab.jar and existing AIML rules from it.
2.2. Create eclipse project

Create eclipse maven project to start the development. So let’s create a maven project with .

2.3. Create project and import AIML library

Create eclipse maven project to start the development. Choose packaging as jar and GAV
coordinate as your choice and import to eclipse. Now create a folder lib in the base folder
and copy the Ab.jar from the program-ab distribution to this folder.

2.4. Add AIML to classpath

To add AIML to classpath, add Ab.jar to deployment assembly in eclipse. Alternatively you
can install this jar into your local maven repository and then use it.

Add below AIML maven dependency to pom.xml. Now build the maven project by command
mvn clean install.

<dependencies>
    <dependency>
        <artifactId>com.google</artifactId>
        <groupId>Ab</groupId>
        <version>0.0.4.3</version>
        <scope>system</scope>
        <systemPath>${basedir}/lib/Ab.jar</systemPath>
    </dependency>
</dependencies>

2.5. Copy default AIML rules

Copy the bots folder from program-ab directory into the resources folder of your maven
project. This folder contains default AIML sets that we will use initially. Later we will see
how we can add our custom rules into our Chatbot.
 Project Structure with bots added to resources folder

2.6. Create Hello World Chatbot Program

Now create a simple java program i.e. Chatbot.java. It’s main() method will invoke the
chat program which will run on the command prompt. Basic structure of this program will be
to introduce a infinite loop and in each loop take a user input from command prompt and then
we will ask program-ab API to give the answer of the input provided by user.

More details about the program-ab API interaction is mentioned in the wiki link.

package com.howtodoinjava.ai;
 
import java.io.File;
import org.alicebot.ab.Bot;
import org.alicebot.ab.Chat;
import org.alicebot.ab.History;
import org.alicebot.ab.MagicBooleans;
import org.alicebot.ab.MagicStrings;
import org.alicebot.ab.utils.IOUtils;
 
public class Chatbot {
    private static final boolean TRACE_MODE = false;
    static String botName = "super";
 
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        try {
 
            String resourcesPath = getResourcesPath();
            System.out.println(resourcesPath);
            MagicBooleans.trace_mode = TRACE_MODE;
            Bot bot = new Bot("super", resourcesPath);
            Chat chatSession = new Chat(bot);
            bot.brain.nodeStats();
            String textLine = "";
 
            while(true) {
                System.out.print("Human : ");
                textLine = IOUtils.readInputTextLine();
                if ((textLine == null) || (textLine.length() < 1))
                    textLine = MagicStrings.null_input;
                if (textLine.equals("q")) {
                    System.exit(0);
                } else if (textLine.equals("wq")) {
                    bot.writeQuit();
                    System.exit(0);
                } else {
                    String request = textLine;
                    if (MagicBooleans.trace_mode)
                        System.out.println("STATE=" + request + ":THAT=" +
((History) chatSession.thatHistory.get(0)).get(0) + ":TOPIC=" +
chatSession.predicates.get("topic"));
                    String response =
chatSession.multisentenceRespond(request);
                    while (response.contains("&lt;"))
                        response = response.replace("&lt;", "<");
                    while (response.contains("&gt;"))
                        response = response.replace("&gt;", ">");
                    System.out.println("Robot : " + response);
                }
            }
        } catch (Exception e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }
 
    private static String getResourcesPath() {
        File currDir = new File(".");
        String path = currDir.getAbsolutePath();
        path = path.substring(0, path.length() - 2);
        System.out.println(path);
        String resourcesPath = path + File.separator + "src" +
File.separator + "main" + File.separator + "resources";
        return resourcesPath;
    }
}

2.7. Test Chatbot Interactions

Now our program is ready and we can now start conversation with chat. To do that just run
the program as java application. To exit, you shall type q or wq.

Human : Hi
Robot : Hi! It's delightful to see you.
Human : How are you
Robot : Feeling really joyful today.
Human : My name is sajal
Robot : Glad to see you, Sajal
Human : what is my name
Robot : Sajal
Human : tell me my name
Robot : Sajal
Like this, you can do basic talk with the chat bot.

3. Add Custom Patterns in Chatbot

Now we can add our custom patterns in the bot to add more intelligence in the interactions.
To do that create a new .aiml file in the aiml directory of your bot (src\main\resources\
bots\super\aiml) . Add as many categories in that file as you wish. Here category refer to
the human questions and template refers to chat bot’s response. I have created a file called a-
custom-entry.aiml and added three questions as below.

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

<aiml>
    <category><pattern>WHAT IS JAVA</pattern>
        <template>Java is a programming language.</template>
    </category>
    <category><pattern>WHAT IS CHAT BOT</pattern>
        <template>Chatbot is a computer program designed to simulate
        conversation with human users, especially over the
Internet.</template>
    </category>
    <category><pattern>WHAT IS INDIA</pattern>
        <template>wonderful country.</template>
    </category>
</aiml>

Now we can ask bot these three questions as well.

Once our custom aiml file is ready, we need to do generate corresponding entries for other
folders parallel to aiml. To do it, we need to invoke the bot.writeAIMLFiles(). I have
created another java program called AddAiml.java for this purpose. Once you are done with
the aiml editing, just run this program once before starting the bot. It will add these custom
entries to the bot’s brain.

package com.howtodoinjava.ai;
 
import java.io.File;
import org.alicebot.ab.Bot;
import org.alicebot.ab.MagicBooleans;
 
public class AddAiml {
 
    private static final boolean TRACE_MODE = false;
    static String botName = "super";
 
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        try {
 
            String resourcesPath = getResourcesPath();
            System.out.println(resourcesPath);
            MagicBooleans.trace_mode = TRACE_MODE;
            Bot bot = new Bot("super", resourcesPath);
             
            bot.writeAIMLFiles();
 
        } catch (Exception e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }
 
    private static String getResourcesPath() {
        File currDir = new File(".");
        String path = currDir.getAbsolutePath();
        path = path.substring(0, path.length() - 2);
        System.out.println(path);
        String resourcesPath = path + File.separator + "src" +
File.separator + "main" + File.separator + "resources";
        return resourcesPath;
    }
}

3.1. Test custom chat patterns

After running the AddAiml, once you have added the new entries into the AIML, run the chat
bot program again and ask the new questions. It should give proper response.

In my case, here is the output.

Human : What is java

Robot : Java is a programming language.
Human : what is chat bot
Robot : Chatbot is a computer program designed to simulate
conversation with human users, especially over the
Internet.
Human : what is india
Robot : wonderful country.

4. Summary
In this AIML Java tutorial, we have learn to create simple command line based chatbot
program with program-ab reference application. Next time, when you have any such
requirement, you can think of AIML based chat bot. It is capable to doing moderate stuffs
easily.

To enhance your knowledge, you may try to –

 Play with AIML and create more interesting conversations. AIML has many tags
which you can use, it also give some option to configure Sraix to invoke external
REST based web services.
 Add your own custom placeholder in the template section and parse that from the
AIML response and do more based on your identifier in the response, like You can
able to invoke your own web service to get some more information.
 Convert this command line chat program to web based chat, I am currently working
on that and will publish a followup post on that.
 You can add your custom rule engine on top of your AIML response to do more.

AIML can do lots of things, but now a days much more sophisticated techniques are available
specially in the Machine Learning space, try to learn those as well.
I have deleted the Ab.jar file from this source code distribution due to the size restriction.
Please add the jar file from program-ab distribution that you have downloaded initially.
Download Java Chatbot Source Code

Happy Learning !!

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Feedback, Discussion and Comments

1. kapil singh

April 21, 2020

SIr your web based Chatbot was build or not can you plz share with us

2. botUser

April 7, 2020

I came across such problem, let’s say I added few categories, ran AddAIML program,
tested them and they work fine, then I added few more categories and ran the
AddAIML program again, the problem is that it deletes the latest categories that I
added and restores the files so that the only categories that appear there are the very
first ones that i’ve created.

3. inthiyaj khan patan

January 26, 2020

An excellent article to begin with AIML. need more clarification on AIML code so
that we can customize it based on our requirement. i am looking for Web based bot.

4. Paul

May 19, 2019

great article . I would appreciate to get web based version

5. Ananda

May 15, 2019

 Thanks Sajal. For All, I downloaded application from this link “Download Java
Chatbot Source Code” above and able to run application on eclipse(after importing
this maven project).

o Dheeraj

August 27, 2019

Could help me how to install it

6. Naresh Tekmalle

March 27, 2019

Guys try this project in intelij community edition it will work…..

7. Yogesh Katkar

March 14, 2019

how to track session if two users are concurrently chatting with bot?

8. Hariharan

January 25, 2019

Great leaning! Thanks

9. Shubhashri

October 25, 2018

what does MagicBooleans are for?Also, what files are written and where, by the
statement ” bot.writeAIMLFiles();”??

10. Sarvesh

October 16, 2018

Where can I look for documentation to understand this code ?

11. Pavan Patil

October 9, 2018

Exception in thread “main” java.lang.Error: Unresolved compilation problems:

MagicBooleans cannot be resolved to a variable
Bot cannot be resolved to a type
Bot cannot be resolved to a type
 How to solve this error?

12. Ankit

August 16, 2018

Hi, were you able to convert it to a web based module?

o Vinod

January 3, 2020

Yes

 Trupti

January 14, 2020

can you share how we can convert this code in web based module?

 Mohamed

May 13, 2020

Hi Vinod, Can you let em know how you converted this to web ?

 sharukhan

May 14, 2020

hi will u share how to convert it as web?

Servlet.service() for servlet [dispatcher] in context with path [/Insert]

threw exception [Handler dispatch failed; nested exception is
java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: org/alicebot/ab/Bot] with root cause
java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: org.alicebot.ab.Bot

i got this error after converting this into web based…alicebot is not
working in web based module

someone help me to clear this error

13. Rahul

July 4, 2018

in the target folder there is two files .classpath and .project but this files not contain in
the source folder you are provided
 also
when it runs it displays no main class

14. Anant Mane

June 17, 2018

How to stop bot going outside for getting response?

15. riyaz

May 26, 2018

how to convert this to web based chat?

16. Toufiq

December 14, 2017

How to solve this issue –

javax.net.ssl.SSLPeerUnverifiedException: peer not authenticated
at sun.security.ssl.SSLSessionImpl.getPeerCertificates(Unknown Source)
at org.apache.http.conn.ssl.AbstractVerifier.verify(AbstractVerifier.java:128)
at
org.apache.http.conn.ssl.SSLSocketFactory.connectSocket(SSLSocketFactory.java:57
2)
at
org.apache.http.impl.conn.DefaultClientConnectionOperator.openConnection(Default
ClientConnectionOperator.java:180)
at
org.apache.http.impl.conn.ManagedClientConnectionImpl.open(ManagedClientConn
ectionImpl.java:294)
at
org.apache.http.impl.client.DefaultRequestDirector.tryConnect(DefaultRequestDirect
or.java:640)
at
org.apache.http.impl.client.DefaultRequestDirector.execute(DefaultRequestDirector.j
ava:479)
at
org.apache.http.impl.client.AbstractHttpClient.execute(AbstractHttpClient.java:906)
at
org.apache.http.impl.client.AbstractHttpClient.execute(AbstractHttpClient.java:805)
at
org.apache.http.impl.client.AbstractHttpClient.execute(AbstractHttpClient.java:784)
at org.alicebot.ab.utils.NetworkUtils.responseContent(NetworkUtils.java:50)
at org.alicebot.ab.Sraix.sraixPannous(Sraix.java:111)
at org.alicebot.ab.Sraix.sraix(Sraix.java:42)
at org.alicebot.ab.AIMLProcessor.sraix(AIMLProcessor.java:385)
at org.alicebot.ab.AIMLProcessor.recursEval(AIMLProcessor.java:1050)
at org.alicebot.ab.AIMLProcessor.evalTagContent(AIMLProcessor.java:246)
at org.alicebot.ab.AIMLProcessor.recursEval(AIMLProcessor.java:1040)
at org.alicebot.ab.AIMLProcessor.evalTemplate(AIMLProcessor.java:1133)
at org.alicebot.ab.AIMLProcessor.respond(AIMLProcessor.java:187)
at org.alicebot.ab.AIMLProcessor.respond(AIMLProcessor.java:162)
at org.alicebot.ab.Chat.respond(Chat.java:115)
at org.alicebot.ab.Chat.respond(Chat.java:140)
at org.alicebot.ab.Chat.multisentenceRespond(Chat.java:165)
at com.Chatbot.main(Chatbot.java:41)
Robot : I used my lifeline to ask another robot, but he didn’t know.
I’m going to try a search

o Defi

September 26, 2018

Hi Toufiq,

Did you find an answer. I’m too getting same error message.

 Saurabh Bhatteja

December 25, 2018

Hi Toufiq and Defi,

Did you find any resolution for this exception.

I’m also facing the same issue.

o Saurabh Bhatteja

December 25, 2018

Did you find any resolution for this issue ?

 Mohamed Rizwan

March 16, 2019

Hey guys,
have you find solution for this error. I am also facing the same problem
. if anyone resolved it. please, update the method to resolve that.

 Naresh Tekmalle

March 27, 2019

try this project in intelij community edition ..

 Don Bosco Rayappan

 August 18, 2019

Guys,

It’s trying to connect to a restful web services, which has SSL

enabled. As of now, it’s trying to hit
“https://ask.pannous.com/api” or
“https://weannie.pannous.com/api” for web service answers.

I will recommend those who want to build answer to it, either

go register and get a customer id and credentials in
http://www.alicebot.org or download the sources for
programab.jar and change the restful service url to your own.
Thanks

o Kapil Singh Rana

March 4, 2020

go get the solution bro i face same problem

o Kapil Singh Rana

March 4, 2020

plz reply if anyone get the solution of this error

17. kalyan

November 22, 2017

How can we maintain and retain (to be able to retrieve later) the state of a chat ??
Could we build the chat object through some id (session id) ??

o Naveen

December 19, 2017

Hi Kalyan,

Did you find the solution, even I am working on the same. I wanted to store
the chat session/context and retrieve later.

–Naveen

 LAKSHMIPATHY M

May 30, 2018

Hi Naveen,
 We can save the chat history if we are running application in eclipse
IDE

18. Matheus Lubarino

September 17, 2017

First, excelent article

I have a question, I did you example but when I create a new aiml file in PT-BR the
robot not understood my language. what’s up ?

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