Hi all,
I am looking for a program that will take my AIML file as input and tell me what the errors are. I am trying to use the pandora playground but the file upload interface is a shade confusing because there are accessibility challenges in the form of unlabeled controls on that page. I prefer to code AIML by hand and to correct it locally and then upload it to pandora.
My desktop operating system is Windows 10 but I run ubuntu in a virtual machine so even a command line parser that I could run through a terminal emulator would do.

Hello and welcome, Pranav!

To the best of my knowledge, I don’t believe that there is a solution like the one you’ve described. That said, however, there are tools available online that you may find useful. For example, I’ve got an AIML validator script that can check an AIML file against the AIML 1.0/1.0.1 standard and report back any code that fails validation. You can find it at:

http://geekcavecreations.com/AIML/validate.php

There are other tools there, and more are planned. I hope this helps.

I am unaware of one either. The closest thing I get is by loading my AIML file into Pandorabots, compiling it, then hopefully the error messages give a clue, usually something like, “</srai> unexpected”. I asked Pandorabots if they could add a “..at line 160” to the messages but nothing as yet.

Hi Dave and Steve,
Dave, your AIML validator script is just what I am looking for. Its interface is easier than that of pandorabots and wonder of wonders my file has validated!

Stteve, Pandorabots does give you the character position which I was able to use. I used notepad ++ to go to the character position and fix an extra < sign that I had placed after a closing category tag. Yes, I agree, a line number would be much much better. Give character and line number would be my suggestion.

I’m glad you were able to get your problem sorted out, and that you found the validator useful. If you have any more trouble, please let us know, and if you have an idea for AIML tools that you might find useful, please contact me to discuss it.