So I got this java chatbot program that I'm working on.
Depending on what the user says, the chatbot either gives a canned response canned_phrases
or a mirrored response if the user's response has one of the keywords I love pizza
--> you love pizza
.
The problem is that the chatbot does not give back the mirrored version. I think the problem is that the words are being overwritten by each other but I'm not sure how to fix that.
Thank for your help!
import java.util.Random;
import java.util.Scanner;
public class Conversation {
public static void main(String[] args) {
String[] canned_phrases = {"Yes",
"Hmmm. Please tell me more news",
"Of course",
"Okay",
"Interesting...",
"Indeed"};
int canned_times = canned_phrases.length;
Scanner conversation_start = new Scanner(System.in);
System.out.println("\nWelcome!\n");
System.out.println("How many rounds of conversation would you like to have?\n");
int rounds = conversation_start.nextInt();
conversation_start.nextLine();
String[] transcript = new String[2 * rounds + 1];
transcript[0] = "Sounds great! How are you doing today?";
System.out.println(transcript[0]);
for (int i = 0; i < rounds; i++) {
String user_words = conversation_start.nextLine();
String mirrored;
String new_version = user_words.replace("I", "you");
new_version = new_version.replace("me", "you");
new_version = new_version.replace("am", "are");
new_version = new_version.replace("you", "I");
new_version = new_version.replace("my", "your");
new_version = new_version.replace("your", "my");
new_version = new_version.replace("my", "you");
if (!new_version.equals(user_words)) {
mirrored = new_version;
}
else {
mirrored = canned_phrases[(int) Math.floor(canned_times * Math.random())];
}
System.out.println(mirrored);
transcript[2 * i + 1] = user_words;
transcript[2 * i + 1] = mirrored;
}
System.out.println("Thank you for chatting with me! Come back soon!");
System.out.println(" ");
System.out.println("TRANSCRIPT ");
for (int i = 0; i <= transcript.length; i++) {
System.out.println(transcript[i]);
}
System.exit(0);
}
}
I think the best way to achieve what you want is to split the user-entered sentence into words and change the individual words according to your rules, for example if the word is my then change it to your. In the below code, I iterate through all the words in order, changing each word as needed and appending them to a StringBuilder
so that after iterating through all the words, the StringBuilder
contains the mirrored sentence.
(More notes after the code.)
import java.util.Random;
import java.util.Scanner;
public class Conversation {
public static void main(String[] args) {
String[] cannedPhrases = {"Yes",
"Hmmm. Please tell me more news",
"Of course",
"Okay",
"Interesting...",
"Indeed"};
int cannedTimes = cannedPhrases.length;
Random rand = new Random();
Scanner conversationStart = new Scanner(System.in);
System.out.println("\nWelcome!\n");
System.out.println("How many rounds of conversation would you like to have?\n");
int rounds = conversationStart.nextInt();
conversationStart.nextLine();
String[] transcript = new String[2 * rounds];
transcript[0] = "Sounds great! How are you doing today?";
System.out.println(transcript[0]);
int index = -1;
for (int i = 0; i < rounds; i++) {
String userWords = conversationStart.nextLine();
String mirrored;
StringBuilder result = new StringBuilder();
String[] words = userWords.split(" ");
boolean first = true;
for (String word : words) {
if (first) {
first = false;
}
else {
result.append(' ');
}
switch (word) {
case "I":
word = "you";
break;
case "me":
word = "you";
break;
case "am":
word = "are";
break;
case "you":
word = "I";
break;
case "my":
word = "your";
break;
case "your":
word = "my";
break;
}
result.append(word);
}
String newVersion = result.toString();
if (!newVersion.equals(userWords)) {
mirrored = newVersion;
}
else {
mirrored = cannedPhrases[rand.nextInt(cannedTimes)];
}
System.out.println(mirrored);
transcript[++index] = userWords;
transcript[++index] = mirrored;
}
System.out.println("Thank you for chatting with me! Come back soon!");
System.out.println(" ");
System.out.println("TRANSCRIPT ");
for (int i = 0; i < transcript.length; i++) {
System.out.println(transcript[i]);
}
System.exit(0);
}
}
for
loop variable i
to handle both the conversation round and the transcript index, I used a separate variable, named index
for the transcript.for
loop that prints the transcript was wrong. The terminating condition should be i < transcript.length
(and not i <= transcript.length
).Here is output from a sample run:
Welcome!
How many rounds of conversation would you like to have?
2
Sounds great! How are you doing today?
OK
Of course
Why do you say that
Why do I say that
Thank you for chatting with me! Come back soon!
TRANSCRIPT
OK
Of course
Why do you say that
Why do I say that