Blocks
The action blocks make it possible for a contexts to digest an incoming message or event with certain characteristics that matches with the execution criteria of a given block.
They are methods that receive a block of code as a parameter and must be called within the definition of the method
blocks() in a Context class.All necessary blocks can be added, one for each type of message/event that the context is expecting to receive; where (in most cases) only one of them will be executed, if a matches occurs.
Below, in the
MainContext example, we're going to add some blocks and explain how each of them would capture and process an incoming message or event:intent "greeting": A greeting messages, such as"Hello"or"Hi". If the intent exists and has been trained on the NLP engine.regular_expression /([a-z..: Captures the message, if this contains email address, it will return an array with the occurrences found.everything_else: It will be executed in the case of none of the blocks declared above could be executed.
class MainContext < Conversation
def blocks
intent "greeting" do
@reply.text "Hello!"
end
postback "get_started" do |params|
@reply.text "Welcome to Kogno framework!"
end
regular_expression /([a-zA-Z0-9_\-\.]+)@([a-zA-Z0-9_\-\.]+)\.([a-zA-Z]{2,5})/ do |emails|
@reply.text "You've sent me these emails #{emails.join(',')}"
end
any_attachment do |attachment_files|
@reply.text "You've sent me a file"
end
keyword ['stop','close','quit'] do
@reply.text "I'll stop now"
end
everything_else do
@reply.text "I can't understand what you say yet."
end
end
end
The order in which these blocks are called is irrelevant. The explanation bellow..
This process will search for existing matches between the characteristics of an incoming message or event, with the execution criteria of the called blocks in the active context of the conversation.
If the match occurs, the block will be executed and in most cases this process will stop.
The matching process is always performed in the same predefined order, this way each block has a different execution priority.
There is a wide variety of blocks, which are going to be listed in order of execution priority:
Action | Definition | Supported platforms |
|---|---|---|
If it's called, It will always be executed, at the beginning of the block matching process. | Messenger, WhatsApp and Telegram | |
Messenger, WhatsApp and Telegram | ||
Catches any postback and returns two parameters. The postback_payload and postback_params. | Messenger, WhatsApp and Telegram | |
When a user enters the chat through a link with query string parameters such as ref (for Messenger) or start (for Telegram). | Messenger and Telegram. | |
Captures a Telegram command. Example: /start | Telegram | |
Captures any attachment like audio, video, image or any file. | Messenger, WhatsApp and Telegram | |
Captures a message that matches with a given regular expression and returns an array of matches. | Messenger, WhatsApp and Telegram | |
Captures one or several keywords. | Messenger, WhatsApp and Telegram | |
Capture and return an array of all numeric values in a message | Messenger, WhatsApp and Telegram | |
Capture any text message. | Messenger, WhatsApp and Telegram | |
Capture the provided intent, if it was created and trained in the NLP engine. | Messenger, WhatsApp and Telegram | |
Catches any intent and returns the intent as a parameter. | Messenger, WhatsApp and Telegram | |
Captures the NLP entity, if it exists and is trained on the NLP engine. | Messenger, WhatsApp and Telegram | |
Will be executed when the chatbot has been included or removed from a Telegram group or channel. | Telegram | |
Will be executed when a user subscribes or unsubscribes from recursive Messenger notifications. | Messenger | |
This block will be executed if none of the called blocks in a given context could be executed. | Messenger, WhatsApp and Telegram | |
If it is declared, it will always be executed, even if another block has been executed before. | Messenger, WhatsApp and Telegram |
To better understand how block matching process works, let's assume the following:
- A user sends a message with the value "1" .
- And the conversation is currently in the context
GetNumberContext.
class GetNumberContext < Conversation
def blocks
any_number do |number|
# This block will not execute, because keyword block
# has a higher execution priority.
@reply.text "You've send me the number #{number}. Captured by any_number block"
end
keyword "1" do
@reply.text "You've send me the number 1. Captured by keyword block"
end
everything_else do
@reply.text "I'm expecting any number to respond something different."
end
end
end
As much as
any_number is called (even first) and its execution condition matches with the message (which is a number), this will not be executed.keyword "1" block will be executed, because it has a higher execution priority than any_number block, and with the execution of the first one, the matching process will be stopped.These methods allows to control the block matching process, they can be called within an action block or in a callback in the
Conversation class.Stops the block matching process.
class MainContext < Conversation
def actions
before_anything do
@reply.text "This block normaly doesn't stop the block matching process, but in this case it will do"
halt()
end
end
end
Allows to the block matching process continues when is called in an action block.
Continuing the example in
GetNumberContext. By calling this method within
keyword "1" block, any_number block will be executed too.class GetNumberContext < Conversation
def blocks
any_number do |number|
# This block will not execute because keyword has will be executed first.
@reply.text "You've send me the number #{number}. Captured by any_number block"
end
keyword "1" do
@reply.text "You've send me the number 1. Captured by keyword block"
continue()
end
everything_else do
@reply.text "I'm expecting any number to respond something different."
end
end
end
Last modified 7mo ago