Send parameters in ACLMessage

I send a message from one agent to another

msg.setContent("price: 30, count: 1");

After that I need to manually parse it. Is there more convenient way to transfer parameters without converting to string? For example, send some container..

You had better use an ontology. It is more convenient way. For example.

Create your container:

public class ParameterConcept implements Predicate{
    private Long price;
    private Long count;
    ... getters and setters
}

Create your ontology:

public class YourOntology extends Ontology {
    public static final String NAME = "YourOntology";
    private static Ontology instance = new YourOntology();
    public static Ontology getInstance() {
        return instance;
    }

    private YourOntology() {
        super(NAME, BasicOntology.getInstance());

        add(new PredicateSchema("ParameterConcept"), ParameterConcept.class);
        PredicateSchema parameterConcept = (PredicateSchema) getSchema("ParameterConcept");
        parameterConcept.add("price",         (PrimitiveSchema) getSchema(BasicOntology.INTEGER), ObjectSchema.MANDATORY);
        parameterConcept.add("count",         (PrimitiveSchema) getSchema(BasicOntology.INTEGER), ObjectSchema.MANDATORY);
    }
}

Register your ontology like this (YourAgent.java):

private static final Codec codec = new SLCodec();
private static final Ontology ontology = YourOntology.getInstance();

protected void setup() {
    getContentManager().registerLanguage(codec, FIPANames.ContentLanguage.FIPA_SL0);
    getContentManager().registerOntology(ontology);
}

Create message like this:

ACLMessage msg = new ACLMessage(ACLMessage.INFORM);
...
msg.setLanguage(FIPANames.ContentLanguage.FIPA_SL0);
msg.setOntology(YourOntology.NAME);
...
try {
    agent.getContentManager().fillContent(msg, parameterConcept);
} catch (Exception e) {
     throw new RuntimeException("cannot fill message.", e);
}

Now you can parse message (code of the other agent) like this:

ContentManager cm = myAgent.getContentManager();
ContentElement contentElement = cm.extractContent(aclMessage);
ParameterConcept pc = (ParameterConcept) contentElement;

Or you can just use json with third json libs.