UMBC ebiquity
4th International conference on Agent Theories, Architectures, and Languages
TKQML: A Scripting Tool for Building Agents
July 24, 1997
Tcl/Tk is an attractive language for the design of intelligent agents because it allows the quick construction of prototypes and user interfaces; new scripts can easily be bound at runtime to respond to events; and execution state is encapsulated by the interpreter, which helps in agent migration. However a system of intelligent agents must share a common language for communicating requests and knowledge. We have integrated KQML (Knowledge Query Manipulation Language), one such standard language into Tcl/Tk. The resulting system, called TKQML, provides several benefits to those building intelligent systems. First, TKQML allows easy integration of existing tools have Tcl/Tk interfaces with an agent system by using Tcl to move information between KQML and the application. Second, TKQML is an excellent language with which to build agents, allowing on-the-fly specification of message handlers and construction of graphical interfaces. This paper describes the implementation of TKQML and discusses its use in our intelligent agent system for information retrieval.
InProceedings
Springer
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