Build a simple chatbot app in Python

In this tutorial, you will learn how to build your own chatbot in python, which is able to answer you most of the general question you can ask.

what is a chatbot?

A chatbot is artificial intelligence (AI) software that can simulate a conversation (or a chat) with a user in natural language, In this tutorial, you’re going to learn how to build your own simple chatbot using Python.

Requirements

If you’re in window you don’t need to install anything because every module we are going to use comes automatically with Python Standard Library

However, if you’re a Linux user you might need to Install Tkinter Libary on your own

Installation

$ pip install python-tk

Also, you need to have Dictionary json on your local folder which will act as our Knowledgebase for our chatbot.

Download the Below Json Dictionary and put it on your project Directory

knowledge

Project Directory

Your project directory should look as shown below

.
├── app.py
└── knowledge.json

0 directories, 2 files

Building Our Chatbot

Now after you have set everything clear let’s start building our application, throughout the project we are going to use the following Python modules

• json
• difflib
• tkinter

importing Modules

Now import all necessary modules ready to start crafting our chatbot

import json
from difflib import get_close_matches
from tkinter import Tk, Label, Entry, Button, Text, Scrollbar,Frame

giving our chatbot app exoskeleton

We now required to create the exoskeleton of our application by designing our user Interface for our chatbot using Tkinter Library.

Our chatbot UI will need to have the following features

• Entry box to allow as to type a message
• A button to submit the message
• Message part for showing the conversation with a chatbot
• Scroll bar to help us scroll throughout the conversation

Using knowledge of Tkinter I have crafted the above features into Python code shown below.

app.py

import json
from difflib import get_close_matches
from tkinter import Tk, Label, Entry, Button, Text, Scrollbar,Frame
​
class Chatbot:
    def __init__(self, window):
        window.title('Iris bot')
        window.geometry('400x400')
        window.resizable(0,0)
        self.message_session = Text(window, bd=3, relief="flat", font=("Times", 10), undo=True, wrap="word")
        self.message_session.config(width=45, height=15,bg="#596", fg="white", state='disabled')
        self.overscroll = Scrollbar(window, command=self.message_session.yview)
        self.overscroll.config(width=20)
        self.message_session["yscrollcommand"] = self.overscroll.set
        self.message_position = 1.5
        self.send_button = Button(window, text='send', fg='white', bg='blue',width=9,font=('Times', 12), relief ='flat')
        self.Message_Entry = Entry(window, width=40, font=('Times', 12))
        self.message_session.place(x=20, y=20)
        self.overscroll.place(x=370, y=50)
        self.send_button.place(x=0, y=360)
        self.Message_Entry.place(x=135, y=365)
        self.Brain = json.load(open('knowledge.json'))
​
root = Tk()
Chatbot(root)
root.mainloop()

on the above code, I have also loaded by knowledge base JSON into the application ready to be used in the conversations

Output :

When you run the above UI code it will produce the following output

building logic blocks for our chatbot

we will a function to get the message from the entry box and then searching for relevant keywords in the dictionary knowledge base If it finds any it will return to the user.

I have added two simple methods just to do that, together with linking the send button with the methods we just made.

Now Our Complete chatbot code should look as shown below.

import json
from difflib import get_close_matches
from tkinter import Tk, Label, Entry, Button, Text, Scrollbar,Frame
​
class Chatbot:
    def __init__(self, window):
        window.title('Iris Assitant')
        window.geometry('400x400')
        window.resizable(0,0)
        self.message_session = Text(window, bd=3, relief="flat", font=("Times", 10), undo=True, wrap="word")
        self.message_session.config(width=45, height=15,bg="#596", fg="white", state='disabled')
        self.overscroll = Scrollbar(window, command=self.message_session.yview)
        self.overscroll.config(width=20)
        self.message_session["yscrollcommand"] = self.overscroll.set
        self.message_position = 1.5
        self.send_button = Button(window, text='send', fg='white', bg='blue',width=9,font=('Times', 12), relief ='flat', command = self.reply_to_you)
        self.Message_Entry = Entry(window, width=40, font=('Times', 12))
        self.Message_Entry.bind('<Return>', self.reply_to_you)
        self.message_session.place(x=20, y=20)
        self.overscroll.place(x=370, y=50)
        self.send_button.place(x=0, y=360)
        self.Message_Entry.place(x=135, y=365)
        self.Brain = json.load(open('knowledge.json'))
​
    def add_chat(self, message):
        self.message_position+=1.5
        print(self.message_position)
        self.Message_Entry.delete(0, 'end')
        self.message_session.config(state='normal')
        self.message_session.insert(self.message_position, message)
        self.message_session.see('end')
        self.message_session.config(state='disabled')

    def reply_to_you(self, event=None):
        message = self.Message_Entry.get().lower()
        message = 'you: '+ message+'\n'
        close_match = get_close_matches(message, self.Brain.keys())
        if close_match:   
            reply = 'Iris: '+ self.Brain[close_match[0]][0] + '\n'
        else:
            reply = 'Iris: ' + 'Cant it in my knowledge base\n'
        self.add_chat(message)
        self.add_chat(reply)
​
root = Tk()
Chatbot(root)
root.mainloop()

Output :

When you run the above code it will produce the following results

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The Original Article can be found on kalebujordan.com

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