RiveScript in Rust

This is a port of the RiveScript interpreter for the Rust programming language.

It is very much a WORK IN PROGRESS and is not functional yet. The checklist below may give you an idea of its state. Watch the git log and see me learn Rust while I figure this module out!

The rough roadmap as I see it so far:

• Read and parse RiveScript source documents into memory.
  • load_directory(), load_file() and stream() can access RiveScript sources.
  • Parse document into complete 'abstract syntax tree' mapping out topics, triggers and replies.
  • Support all RiveScript commands:
    • ! DEFINITION
    • > LABEL
    • + TRIGGER
    • - RESPONSE
    • % PREVIOUS
    • ^ CONTINUE
    • @ REDIRECT
    • * CONDITION
    • // COMMENT and /* multiline comments */
    • Object macros (collecting names, languages, source code)
  • ! local concat = none|space|newline
  • ! global depth = 25 can change recursion depth
  • Syntax checking and strict mode
• Sorting the replies
  • Sorting +Triggers
  • Sorting %Previous
  • Sorting substitution lists
• Fetch a reply for the user
  • User variable storage
  • > begin blocks
  • -Reply, and (weighted) random responses.
  • @Redirect
  • %Previous
  • *Condition
  • Tags:
    • <star>, <star1> - <starN>
    • <botstar>, <botstar1> - <botstarN>
    • <input1> - <input9>
    • <reply1> - <reply9>
    • <id>
    • <noreply>
    • <bot>
    • <env>
    • <get>, <set>
    • <add>, <sub>, <mult>, <div>
    • {topic=...}
    • {weight=...}
    • {@...}, <@>
    • {!...}
    • {random}
    • {person}, <person>
    • {formal}, <formal>
    • {sentence}, <sentence>
    • {uppercase}, <uppercase>
    • {lowercase}, <lowercase>
    • {ok}
    • \s
    • \n
    • \/
    • \#

Testing It

Git clone this project and run: RUST_LOG=debug cargo run

The main.rs program is currently hardcoded to read from ./eg/brain.

Building

Install Rust and build and test this project with commands like the following:

• cargo build

  Builds the rivescript(.exe) binary.

Developer Notes

This may be put somewhere else when the module is closer to "done."

Just some notes about integrating this module as compared to the other programming languages RiveScript was written in:

• For Rust borrowing/ownership, when the parser finds a +Trigger it can not "give" it to the AST immediately like it does in most other implementations; because -Reply or *Condition need to write into the Trigger reference which it can't do if the AST has it. So the buffer for the current Trigger is given to the AST when:
  • Another +Trigger command is found which starts a new trigger; the current trigger is given to AST before starting the new one.
  • When a > begin or > topic is started; any trigger-in-progress for the old topic is committed to AST.
  • At the end of the parse phase: if one final trigger was being populated it is given to AST before returning.
• In the parser: most implementations do a look-ahead scan both to collect ^Continues (append them to the current line) and to peek for %Previous underneath triggers. In rivescript-rs we only look ahead for ^Continue and process %Previous in the normal command switch similar to @Redirect or *Condition

License

This module will be released under MIT when it becomes functional.

Copyright © 2022 Noah Petherbridge.