[Dante]

Right, it would be very helpful for me if there was an aiml that could say a single message if it cant find a answer to a question, this would allow my front-end to pickup on it and query a search engine...

[Maviarab]

Might be too obvious, but can that not just be scripted?

[Dante]

Forgive me if I misunderstand you, but wouldnt that require I run around like a headless chicken within my bot's brain turning every unknowning answer into one line?

Thats enough to drive anyone mad, me thinks...

[Art]

Dante,

Without knowing which method you are using or looking for I believe Maviarab was hinting at the use of a common
statement that would be called when certain conditions were met by your program.

Usually in any chatbot application there is an Input line ...waiting for text from the user.

If during the programs pattern searching / matching routine it is unable to locate an answer it will usually
default to a "generic" answer OR it will attempt to find a close compromise or at worse, some unrelated statement.

In most cases a line to handle this might be: "Sorry, but I don't have information on ...blah...." Program then goes
back to input routine and awaits the next user question.

Basically, try to set up a subroutine to handle unknowns in a polite / tactful manner then return the program to the
input line again.

I hope this helps. You might also check into the ALICE posting just about this thread.

[Maviarab]

In a way Dante aye, but Art thankfully explained it it all for me hehe.

Thanks Art. Knew it was not as simple as I made it out to be, but hope you now get the gist of what I meant after arts post

[Dante]

I do, i'm getting back into AIML and hating every minute of it :/

[Freddy]

I've been messing around with Program E lately but I don't know how to intercept things when no response occurs.  As soon as I do I will report back.  AIML has so far escaped a lot of my attention.

[squarebear]

Unless I misunderstood the question, surely this would match any question that didn't have a match:

<category>
<pattern>*</pattern>
<template>I have no response for that.</template>
</category>

Human: sdfkseudcnskc
Bot: I have no response for that.