Identify multiple keywords in the input, and respond with both values (HashMap)

[Chan Duller]

Identify multiple keywords in the input, and respond with both values (HashMap). Someone might type in "my windows PC crashed". The SupportSystem class should print out responses for both "windows" and "crashed". You should not have the Responder class do any printing. Also, be sure to print each response out only once (i.e. typing in "crash crashed" should not cause the same response to be printed twice).

/**
 * The responder class represents a response generator object.
 * It is used to generate an automatic response, based on specified input.
 * Input is presented to the responder as a set of words, and based on those
 * words the responder will generate a String that represents the response.
 *
 * Internally, the reponder uses a HashMap to associate words with response
 * strings and a list of default responses. If any of the input words is found
 * in the HashMap, the corresponding response is returned. If none of the input
 * words is recognized, one of the default responses is randomly chosen.
 * 
 * @author     Michael Kölling and David J. Barnes
 * @version    1.0 (2011.07.31)
 */
public class Responder
{
    // Used to map key words to responses.
    private HashMap<String, String> responseMap;
    // Default responses to use if we don't recognise a word.
    private HashMap<String, String> synonymMap;
    private ArrayList<String> defaultResponses;
    private Random randomGenerator;

    /**
     * Construct a Responder
     */
    public Responder()
    {
        responseMap = new HashMap<String, String>();
        synonymMap = new HashMap<String, String>();
        defaultResponses = new ArrayList<String>();
        fillResponseMap();
        fillSynonymMap();
        fillDefaultResponses();
        randomGenerator = new Random();
    }

    /**
     * Generate a response from a given set of input words.
     * 
     * @param words  A set of words entered by the user
     * @return       A string that should be displayed as the response
     */
    public String generateResponse(HashSet<String> words)
    {
        for (String word : words) {
            String response = responseMap.get(synonymMap.get(word));
            if(response != null) {
                return response;
            }
        }
        
        // If we get here, none of the words from the input line was recognized.
        // In this case we pick one of our default responses (what we say when
        // we cannot think of anything else to say...)
        return pickDefaultResponse();
    }

    /**
     * Enter all the known synonyms of keywords and their associated
     * keywords into our synonym map.
     */
    private void fillSynonymMap()
    {
        synonymMap.put("crashes", "crash");
        synonymMap.put("crashed", "crash");
        synonymMap.put("crash", "crash");
        synonymMap.put("slower", "slow");
        synonymMap.put("slowly", "slow");
        synonymMap.put("slows", "slow");
        synonymMap.put("slowlest", "slow");
        synonymMap.put("slow", "slow");
        synonymMap.put("performs", "performance");
        synonymMap.put("perform", "performance");
        synonymMap.put("performing", "performance");
        synonymMap.put("performed", "performance");
        synonymMap.put("performance", "performance");
        synonymMap.put("buggy", "bug");
        synonymMap.put("bugs", "bug");
        synonymMap.put("bug", "bug");
        synonymMap.put("pricey", "expensive");
        synonymMap.put("costly", "expensive");
        synonymMap.put("expensive", "expensive");
        synonymMap.put("install", "installation");
        synonymMap.put("installed", "installation");
        synonymMap.put("installs", "installation");
        synonymMap.put("installing", "installation");
        synonymMap.put("installation", "installation");
    }
    
    /**
     * Enter all the known keywords and their associated responses
     * into our response map.
     */
    private void fillResponseMap()
    {
        responseMap.put("crash", 
                        "Well, it never crashes on our system. It must have something\n" +
                        "to do with your system. Tell me more about your configuration.");
        responseMap.put("crashes", 
                        "Well, it never crashes on our system. It must have something\n" +
                        "to do with your system. Tell me more about your configuration.");
        responseMap.put("slow", 
                        "I think this has to do with your hardware. Upgrading your processor\n" +
                        "should solve all performance problems. Have you got a problem with\n" +
                        "our software?");
        responseMap.put("performance", 
                        "Performance was quite adequate in all our tests. Are you running\n" +
                        "any other processes in the background?");
        responseMap.put("bug", 
                        "Well, you know, all software has some bugs. But our software engineers\n" +
                        "are working very hard to fix them. Can you describe the problem a bit\n" +
                        "further?");
        responseMap.put("buggy", 
                        "Well, you know, all software has some bugs. But our software engineers\n" +
                        "are working very hard to fix them. Can you describe the problem a bit\n" +
                        "further?");
        responseMap.put("windows", 
                        "This is a known bug to do with the Windows operating system. Please\n" +
                        "report it to Microsoft. There is nothing we can do about this.");
        responseMap.put("mac", 
                        "This is a known bug to do with the Mac operating system. Please\n" +
                        "report it to Apple. There is nothing we can do about this.");
        responseMap.put("expensive", 
                        "The cost of our product is quite competitive. Have you looked around\n" +
                        "and really compared our features?");
        responseMap.put("installation", 
                        "The installation is really quite straight forward. We have tons of\n" +
                        "wizards that do all the work for you. Have you read the installation\n" +
                        "instructions?");
        responseMap.put("memory", 
                        "If you read the system requirements carefully, you will see that the\n" +
                        "specified memory requirements are 1.5 giga byte. You really should\n" +
                        "upgrade your memory. Anything else you want to know?");
        responseMap.put("linux", 
                        "We take Linux support very seriously. But there are some problems.\n" +
                        "Most have to do with incompatible glibc versions. Can you be a bit\n" +
                        "more precise?");
        responseMap.put("bluej", 
                        "Ahhh, BlueJ, yes. We tried to buy out those guys long ago, but\n" +
                        "they simply won't sell... Stubborn people they are. Nothing we can\n" +
                        "do about it, I'm afraid.");
    }

    /**
     * Build up a list of default responses from which we can pick one
     * if we don't know what else to say.
     */
    private void fillDefaultResponses()
    {
        defaultResponses.add("That sounds odd. Could you describe that problem in more detail?");
        defaultResponses.add("No other customer has ever complained about this before. \n" +
                             "What is your system configuration?");
        defaultResponses.add("That sounds interesting. Tell me more...");
        defaultResponses.add("I need a bit more information on that.");
        defaultResponses.add("Have you checked that you do not have a dll conflict?");
        defaultResponses.add("That is explained in the manual. Have you read the manual?");
        defaultResponses.add("Your description is a bit wishy-washy. Have you got an expert\n" +
                             "there with you who could describe this more precisely?");
        defaultResponses.add("That's not a bug, it's a feature!");
        defaultResponses.add("Could you elaborate on that?");
    }

    /**
     * Randomly select and return one of the default responses.
     * @return     A random default response
     */
    private String pickDefaultResponse()
    {
        // Pick a random number for the index in the default response list.
        // The number will be between 0 (inclusive) and the size of the list (exclusive).
        int index = randomGenerator.nextInt(defaultResponses.size());
        return defaultResponses.get(index);
    }
}

**
 * This class implements a technical support system.
 * It is the top level class in this project.
 * The support system communicates via text input/output
 * in the text terminal.
 * 
 * This class uses an object of class InputReader to read input
 * from the user, and an object of class Responder to generate responses.
 * It contains a loop that repeatedly reads input and generates
 * output until the users wants to leave.
 * 
 * @author     Michael Kölling and David J. Barnes
 * @version    1.0 (2011.07.31)
 */
public class SupportSystem
{
    private InputReader reader;
    private Responder responder;
    
    /**
     * Creates a technical support system.
     */
    public SupportSystem()
    {
        reader = new InputReader();
        responder = new Responder();
    }

    /**
     * Start the technical support system. This will print a welcome message and enter
     * into a dialog with the user, until the user ends the dialog.
     */
    public void start()
    {
        boolean finished = false;

        printWelcome();

        while(!finished) {
            HashSet<String> input = reader.getInput();

            if(input.contains("bye")) {
                finished = true;
            }
            else {
                String response = responder.generateResponse(input);
                System.out.println(response);
            }
        }
        printGoodbye();
    }

    /**
     * Print a welcome message to the screen.
     */
    private void printWelcome()
    {
        System.out.println("Welcome to the DodgySoft Technical Support System.");
        System.out.println();
        System.out.println("Please tell us about your problem.");
        System.out.println("We will assist you with any problem you might have.");
        System.out.println("Please type 'bye' to exit our system.");
    }

    /**
     * Print a good-bye message to the screen.
     */
    private void printGoodbye()
    {
        System.out.println("Nice talking to you. Bye...");
    }
}

/**
 * InputReader reads typed text input from the standard text terminal. 
 * The text typed by a user is then chopped into words, and a set of words 
 * is provided.
 * 
 * @author     Michael Kölling and David J. Barnes
 * @version    1.0 (2011.07.31)
 */
public class InputReader
{
    private Scanner reader;

    /**
     * Create a new InputReader that reads text from the text terminal.
     */
    public InputReader()
    {
        reader = new Scanner(System.in);
    }

    /**
     * Read a line of text from standard input (the text terminal),
     * and return it as a set of words.
     *
     * @return  A set of Strings, where each String is one of the 
     *          words typed by the user
     */
    public HashSet<String> getInput() 
    {
        System.out.print("> ");                // print prompt
        String inputLine = reader.nextLine().trim().toLowerCase();

        String[] wordArray = inputLine.split(" ");  // split at spaces

        // add words from array into hashset 
        HashSet<String> words = new HashSet<String>();
        for(String word : wordArray) {
            words.add(word);
        }
        return words;
    }
}

[Tim Cooke]

When posting code it's always best to UseCodeTags to make you code nice and easy to read. I've added them for you this time, see how much better it looks?

Ok, so back to your question. Well, you appear to have forgotten to ask any question at all. All I see is what I assume is your school assignment, and what appears to be someone else's solution to it. What's going on?

[Chan Duller]

Thank you for the code tags. There is no solution to it yet. I did the first part, which was to make a second HashMap with synonyms of keywords from the first. However, I cannot figure out where to start for the second part where we need to be able to get both values (responses) returned if the prompt includes two keywords.

[Chan Duller]

/**
     * Generate a response from a given set of input words.
     * 
     * @param words  A set of words entered by the user
     * @return       A string that should be displayed as the response
     */
    public String generateResponse(HashSet<String> words)
    {
        ArrayList<String> responses = new ArrayList<String>();
        for (String word : words) {
            String response = responseMap.get(synonymMap.get(word));
            if(response != null) {
                responses.add();
                return responses;
            }
        }

        // If we get here, none of the words from the input line was recognized.
        // In this case we pick one of our default responses (what we say when
        // we cannot think of anything else to say...)
        return pickDefaultResponse();

    }

This is what I have added, but I am getting an error when I try to use the add feature of ArrayLists. Any suggestions?

[Paul Clapham]

In future it would be very helpful if you explained your problem a bit more fully. "Getting an error" isn't very specific, in fact it doesn't tell us anything at all. However I can see by looking at your code that you aren't saying (in the code) what you want to add to the list.

[Henry Wong]

Chan Duller wrote:
This is what I have added, but I am getting an error when I try to use the add feature of ArrayLists. Any suggestions?

The ArrayList class does not have an add() method that takes no-arguments. It does have an add() method that takes one argument, and it also has an add() method that takes two arguments. Perhaps you meant to call one of those methods instead?

Henry

[Chan Duller]

/**
     * Generate a response from a given set of input words.
     * 
     * @param words  A set of words entered by the user
     * @return       A string that should be displayed as the response
     */
    public String generateResponse(HashSet<String> words)
    {
        ArrayList<String> responses = new ArrayList<String>();
        for (String word : words) {
            String response = responseMap.get(synonymMap.get(word));
            if(response != null) {
                responses.add(response);
                return responses;
            }
        }

        // If we get here, none of the words from the input line was recognized.
        // In this case we pick one of our default responses (what we say when
        // we cannot think of anything else to say...)
        return pickDefaultResponse();

    }

This is the update, but now I am getting the following error: incompatible types: java.util.ArrayList<java.lang.String> cannot be converted to java.lang.String.

[Chan Duller]

I just figured out that it is because it expects a String return type. My only question is, how do I work it when the default response is in String form, and the other is in ArrayList form?

[Knute Snortum]

Don't you just want to return response instead of responses?

            if(response != null) {
                responses.add(response);
                return response;
            }