NAME

Text::Conversation - Turn a conversation into threads, one line at a time.

VERSION

version 0.053

SYNOPSIS

#!perl

use warnings;
use strict;
use Text::Conversation;

my $threader = Text::Conversation->new();

my %messages;

while (<STDIN>) {
	next unless
		my ($speaker_name, $their_text) = /^(\S+)\s+(\S.*?)\s*$/;

	my ($this_message_id, $referent_message_id) =
		$threader->observe($speaker_name, $their_text);
	$messages{$this_message_id} = "<$speaker_name> $their_text";

	print $messages{$this_message_id}, "\n";
	if ($referent_message_id) {
		print "  refers to: $messages{$referent_message_id}\n";
	}
	else {
		print "  doesn't refer to anything.\n";
	}
}

DESCRIPTION

Text::Conversation attempts to thread conversational text one line at a time. Given a speaker's ID (often a name, screen name, or other relatively unique identifier) and the text of their message, it attempts to find the most likely message they are referring to. It will also indicate times when it cannot find a referent.

The most common question so far is "How does it work?" That's often followed by the leading "Does it just look for another speaker's ID at the start of the message?" Text::Conversation uses multiple heuristics to determine a message's referent. To be sure, the presence of another speaker's ID counts for a lot, but so do common words between two messages. Consider them similar to quoted text in an e-mail message.

Text::Conversation also keeps track of people who have spoken to each other, either explicitly or implicitly. Chances are good that an otherwise undirected message is aimed at a person and is part of an ongoing conversation.

The module also incorporates penalties. The link between two messages is degraded more as the module searches farther back in time. Likewise, there are penalties for referring to messages beyond the speaker's previous message, or the addressee's.

Text::Conversation is considered by its author to be "beta" quality code. The heuristics are often uncannily accurate... if you steadfastly ignore their shortcomings. I am trapped in a module factory. Please send feedback and patches.

INTERFACE

So, like, what are the methods? So far the module only supports these. I'm sure others will emerge as people use the module.

• new NAMED_PARAMETERS

  Create and return a new Text::Conversation object. The constructor takes a few parameters, specified as name/value pairs. All the parameters are optional.

  Here's a constructor that uses all the parameters. Unfortunately, the coder has sillily used all the default values when writing it.

    my $threader = Text::Conversation->new(
    	debug         => 0,
    	thread_buffer => 30,
    );
  

  "debug" turns on a lot of warnings that most people won't be interested in to begin with. They may become curious and enable it after they come to realize the module often does a lousy job of threading. Please roll 1d4, and subtract that number from your Sanity if you enable debugging.

  "thread_buffer" sets the number of messages that the module keeps in its short-term memory. These messages are the ones considered when looking for referents. If you're looking for an analogy, consider it the number of messages that fit or your terminal, and you can't scroll back. When someone says something peculiar, and you skim your screen for what the heck they're talking about, there's only "thread_buffer" number of messages visible.

  The thread buffer shouldn't be too large. Messages are penalized the farther back they are in time, so a huge buffer just consumes memory with little or no gain. The default of 30 lines seems sane today.

• observe SPEAKER_ID, SPEAKER_TEXT

  Ask Text::Conversation to observe a "spoken" message. observe() returns two values: the unique ID of this new message, and the ID of the message the speaker is most likely referring to. If we're lucky, the referent ID is actually meaningful.

  Oh, if Text::Conversation decides they're just spouting into the void (that is, what they've said doesn't refer to anything in its short-term memory), then the referent ID is undefined. I hope the example in the SYNOPSIS adequately portrays this behavior.

    my ($new_message_id, $referent_id) = $threader->observe(
    	$screen_name, $what_they_said
    );
  
    if (defined $referent_id) {
    	print "They're referring to message '$referent_id'.\n";
    }
    else {
    	print "Uh-oh.  $screen_name is on their soapbox again.\n";
    }
  

SEE ALSO

The heck if I know. Suggest something.

BUGS

Text::Conversation is considered beta code. Thank Ford it's not alpha! The threading heuristics are interesting, and sometimes they are surprisingly effective, but they aren't perfect.

This module's locale is hardcoded for English. Please send patches to support your native tongue if you cannot read this.

Consecutive messages by the same author, where the subsequent messages begin with conjunctions, are most likely a monologue. The subsequent messages are more likely to address the same destination as the first one. LotR suggested this. And I believe he's right.

At least in Perl-related IRC channels there is a convention whereby people "correct" previous messages by stating simple substitutions. For example:

<bynari> my butt hurts
<bynari> s/butt/head/

The second message states that the previous message was in error, and "butt" should be replaced with "head".

The module doesn't consider periods of time where a speaker is not present. It will happily link someone's message to a thread they couldn't possibly have known about. Be careful fixing this one: Someone may arrive and immediately refer to a thread that occurred before they left.

If an unaddressed message matches a message farther back in a thread, perhaps they're referring to something farther along that branch.

01 <one> A lot of creatures really don't know how to deal with a
		glue trap.  They do that tarbaby thing with increasing
		desperation.
02 <two> yeah.  so, imagine bambi stuck to one.
03 <three> I am imagining my neighbors in a glue
		trap...frantically rolling around trying to get free yet picking
		up various objects in their struggle ... (hey...this sounds
		familiar...)
04 <two> hee
05 <one> Like that game!
06 <three> Yeah! But with our NEIGHBORS!
07 <three> (comic relief IN MY MIND)

At the time of this writing, this conversation threaded like this:

01 <one> A lot of creatures....
	02 <two> yeah.  so, ....
	03 <three> I am imagining ....
	04 <two> hee
		05 <one> Like that game!
			07 <three> (comic relief....
	06 <three> Yeah! But....

It should instead thread like this:

01 <one> A lot of creatures....
	02 <two> yeah.  so, ....
		03 <three> I am imagining ....
			04 <two> hee
			05 <one> Like that game!
				06 <three> Yeah! But....
				07 <three> (comic relief....

The problem occurs in the rule where "If a message's referent is by the same speaker, then set the current referent to the referent of the previous message." In the broken case, 06 refers to 03 (by the same person), so it's "fixed" to point to 01 (because 03 refers to that).

There are probably other things.

BUG TRACKER

https://rt.cpan.org/Dist/Display.html?Status=Active&Queue=Text-Conversation

REPOSITORY

http://github.com/rcaputo/text-conversation http://gitorious.org/text-conversation

OTHER RESOURCES

http://search.cpan.org/dist/Text-Conversation/

AUTHORS

Rocco Caputo conceived of and created Text::Conversation with initial feedback and coments from the residents of various channels on irc.perl.org.

LICENSE

Except where otherwise noted, Text::Conversation is Copyright 2005-2013 by Rocco Caputo. All rights are reserved. Text::Conversation is free software. You may modify and/or redistribute it under the same terms as Perl itself.