BOTINATOR 2000 // Python Chatbot-app

Hans Erling Klevstad, s341872

How to get things running:

1. Start the server by running the command server.py -p [PORT]
2. Start up the desired clients. Options described below.
3. Let the chatting begin.
4. When in --ishuman is enabled for client.py, type "bye" to log out of the chat.
5. When all of the clients have logged off the server terminates itself

SERVER CLI-OPTIONS:

• When the server starts it prints out the IP-address it is running on.
• The argument --conn or -c specifies how many connections the server is waiting for, before opening up the chat. This defaults to 2. It is still possible to join after the initial connection.
• By providing the --ispassive for the server, the server-host does not initate nor participate in any conversations opening up for a more fluid conversation. Make sure to have the bot --freeforall flag enabled, as they only listens to the host by default.

BOT CLI-OPTIONS:

• Run client.py -ip [IP] -p [PORT] -b [NAME]. These fields are mandatory
• For both human and bot clients you have to provide a name with the -b arg. If you name the bot "Chuck" or "Cathy" they have some extra tricks up their sleeve. All other bots will fall back to the default bot-behaviour.
• You kan also specify the number of responses with --limit before the bot quit the chat, this defaults to a random number between 4 and 10
• By enabling --freeforall the given bot will respond to everything being said in the chat, use with care. Should also be used in combination with the --ispassive flag for the server.
• Give a client physical input by enabling --ishuman.

BOT BEHAVIOUR:

Things to ask about and maybe get a decent answer:

• Movies
• Music
• Food
• Maybe cats
• Jokes
• The time

Known issues

• When --ishuman is enabled, the first message is ignored for some reason, so in order to have the stdin detect input, activate the input bye hitting ⏎ (return)
• If two bots log off at the exact same time, the server doesn't always register both simultaneously, resulting in that it will try to send a message to a closed socket, and therefore crash.
• The server-host is not a particularly good host, and will mostly run its own race conversation-wise. It may also sometimes not get when he is supposed to send out a new message, so the conversation may seem awkardly stuck. Some help from a human client is always welcomed
• Since the bots are a gang of loose cannons, they may or may not sometimes leave the party not very gracefully, but error handling is trying to take the edge of it!

Requirements

The only external package needed for this app which is the HTTP-library requests. Both the client.py and server.py files are dependent of the utils.py file in order to run. The client.py also make use of the bot-data.json file to load data for the bots

Happy chatting