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https://github.com/drdub/php-nlgen

NLGen: a library for creating recursive-descent natural language generators
https://github.com/drdub/php-nlgen

ai artificial-intelligence chatbot grammar natural-language-generation nlg nlp php

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NLGen: a library for creating recursive-descent natural language generators

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# NLGen: a library for creating recursive-descent natural language generators



These are pure PHP helper classes to implement recursive-descent

natural language generators [1].  The classes provided are an abstract

generator, an ontology container and a lexicon container.



These classes should help build simple to mid-level generators,

speaking about their complexity.  Emphasis has been made in keeping

more advanced features out of the way for simpler cases (i.e., if

there is no need to use the ontology or the lexicon, they can be

skipped).



The generator keeps track of semantic annotations on the generated

text, so as to enable further generation functions to reason about the

text.  A global context blackboard is also available.



For details on the multilingual example see the Make Web Not War talk. [2]



This is work in progress, see the ROADMAP for some insights in future

development.



* [1] http://duboue.net/blog5.html

* [2] http://duboue.net/papers/makewebnotwar20111128.html



## Available Generation Grammars



NLGen ships with a generation grammar ready to use, that constructs

text descriptions for weekly schedules. The grammar is accessible by

importing `\NLGen\Grammars\Availability\AvailabilityGenerator`.



The method `generateAvailability` receives a list of "busy times" in

the form of



`[ day-of-week, [ start hour, start minute ], [ end hour, end minute ] ]`



a list of ranges indicating when the scheduled day starts and ends (in

the form of `[ day-of-week => [ start hour, start minute ], [ end

hour, end minute ] ]`) and a constant indicating how "coarse" should

be the text (one liner summarizing or very detailed).



See `examples/availability` and `tests/Availability/AvailabilityTest`.



Example:



```php

use NLGen\Grammars\Availability\AvailabilityGenerator;



$gen = new AvailabilityGenerator();

$busyList = [

  [3, [16, 30], [17, 30] ],

  [6, [ 6, 55], [11, 41] ],

  [6, [14, 32], [22, 05] ]

];

$fullRanges = [];

foreach(range(0, 6) as $dow) {

 $fullRanges[$dow] = [ [6, 0], [24, 0] ];

}

echo $gen->generateAvailability($busyList, $fullRanges, AvailabilityGenerator::BASE, null);

```



Produces _All week is mostly free all day. Sunday is busy from late 6 AM to late 11 AM, and from half past 14 PM to 22 PM; the rest is free._



## Using it in your own projects



Look at the `examples/` folder, but in a nutshell, subclass the

`NLGen\Generator` class and implemented a function named `top`. This

function can return either a string or an array with a `text` and

`sem` for semantic annotations on the returned text.



If you want to use other functions to assemble the text use

`$this->gen('name_of_the_function',

$data_array_input_to_the_function)` to call it (instead of

`$this->name_of_the_function($data_array_input_to_the_function)`. Or

you can define your functions as *protected* and use function

interposition, described below. The generator abstract class keeps

track of the semantic annotations for you and other goodies.



If the functions that implement the grammar are *protected*, a dynamic

class can be created with the `NewSealed` class method. This dynamic

class will have function interception so you can call

`$this->name_of_function` as usual but actually `$this->gen` will be

called.



Either way you use it, to call the class, if your instantiated

subclass is `$my_gen` then `$my_gen->generate($input_data_as_an_array)`

will return the generated strings. If you want to access the semantic

annotations, use `$my_gen->semantics()` afterward.



For different use cases, see the `examples/` folder.



## Most basic example



This example is grafted from the `examples/basic` folder. To be

invoked command-line with `php basic.php 0 0 0 0` (it produces _Juan

started working on Component ABC_).



```php

class BasicGenerator extends Generator {



  var $agents = array('Juan','Pedro','The helpdesk operator');

  var $events = array('started','is','finished');

  var $actions = array('working on','coding','doing QA on');

  var $themes = array('Component ABC','Item 25','the delivery subsystem');



  protected function top($data){

    return

      $this->person($data[0]). " " .

      $this->action($data[1], $data[2]). " " .

      $this->item($data[3]);

  }



  protected function person($agt){ return $this->agents[$agt]; }

  protected function action($evt, $act){ return $this->events[$evt]." ".$this->actions[$act]; }

  protected function item($thm) { return $this->themes[$thm];  }

}



global $argv,$argc;

$gen = BasicGenerator::NewSealed();

print $gen->generate(array_splice($argv,1) /*,array("debug"=>1)*/)."\n";

```



## Learning more about NLG



I highly recommend Building Natural Language Generation Systems (2000)

by Reiter and Dale.



The SIGGEN site [2] has plenty of good resources. You might also want

to look at the NLG portal at the Association for Computational

Linguistics wiki [3].



Last but not least, you might be interested in the author's blog [4]

and the class notes of his recent NLG course [5].



* [2] http://www.siggen.org/

* [3] http://aclweb.org/aclwiki/index.php?title=Natural_Language_Generation_Portal

* [4] http://duboue.net/blog.html

* [5] http://wiki.duboue.net/index.php/2011_FaMAF_Intro_to_NLG



## Integrations

* https://doc.tiki.org/Natural-Language-Generation



## Sponsorship



Work on NLGen is sponsored by [Textualization Software Ltd.](https://textualization.com).



## License



This library is licensed under the MIT License - See the [LICENSE](LICENSE) file for details.