ChatBot

Intro

The ChatBot creates a dialogue where users can ask questions about some aspects of memory management in C++. After the knowledge base of the chatbot has been loaded from a text file, a knowledge graph representation is created in computer memory, where chatbot answers represent the graph nodes and user queries represent the graph edges. After a user query has been sent to the chatbot, the Levenshtein distance is used to identify the most probable answer. This project uses raw pointers to represent the knowledge graph and interconnections between objects.

Basic Build Instructions

1. Clone this repo.
2. Make a build directory in the top level directory: mkdir build && cd build
3. Compile: cmake .. && make
4. Run it: ./membot.

Code structure

src -
    | `chatgui.h` / `chatgui.cpp`
    | `chatlogic.h` / `chatlogic.cpp` 
    | `chatbot.h` / `chatbot.cpp`
    | `graphnodes.h` / `graphnodes.cpp`
    | `graphedges.h` / `graphedges.cpp`

• chatgui.h / chatgui.cpp: In file chatgui.h / chatgui.cpp, this makes _chatLogic an exclusive resource to class ChatbotPanelDialog using a smart pointer.

• chatbot.h / chatbot.cpp: ChatBot complies with the Rule of Five such as Chatbot constructor methods which allocate / deallocate memory resources on the heap and also copy member data. When sending a query to the ChatBot, it prints a string of the type e.g. "ChatBot Copy Constructor" to the console. Rule of five mehtods are as follows:

  • ChatBot Constructor/Destructor
  • ChatBot Move Constructor
  • ChatBot Move Assignment Operator
  • ChatBot Copy Constructor
  • ChatBot Copy Assignment Operator

• chatlogic.h / chatlogic.cpp:

  • adapt the vector _nodes in a way that the instances of GraphNodes to which the vector elements refer are exclusively owned by the class ChatLogic.
  • create a local ChatBot instance on the stack at the bottom of function LoadAnswerGraphFromFile.
  • pass the ChatBot instance into the root node by using move semantics.
  • ChatLogic has no ownership relation to the ChatBot instance and thus is no longer responsible for memory allocation and deallocation
  • the ChatBot instance (_chatBot) is used as a communication handle between GUI and ChatBot instance.
  • When passing the GraphNode instances to functions, contains the changes to class ChatLogic.

• graphnodes.h / graphnodes.cpp

  • each instance of GraphNode exclusively owns the outgoing GraphEdges and holds non-owning references to incoming GraphEdges with smart pointers.
  • When transferring ownership from class ChatLogic, where all instances of GraphEdge are created, into instances of GraphNode, use move semantics.

demo

start	end

Run-time Environment Dependency

• cmake >= 3.11
• make >= 4.1
• gcc/g++ >= 5.4
• wxWidgets >= 3.0, wxWidgets Binary