FIPA ACL Library

This library provides an implementation for the representation of messages conforming to the FIPA specifications hosted at http://www.fipa.org

This library implements the fipa acl message in different encodings: bitefficient, XML and string encoding. In addition it provides the implementation of the bitefficient message envelope. No implementation exists for a string representation of the message envelope, since according to http://www.fipa.org/specs/fipa00073/DC00073D.html this standard has been deprecated.

Next to the standard implementation of message and envelope types, this library provides a statemachine to monitor a message flow based on performatives. The conversation monitor is capable of monitoring the conversation based on the protocol specified in the messages. There are scxml documents specifying how these protocols are defined. Protocols may contain subprotocols, which is partially supported. For constraints and examples see the documentation of fipa::acl::ConversationMonitor Examples

The following list typical application examples when using this library.

Creating messages

#include <fipa_acl/fipa_acl.h>

using namespace fipa::acl;

ACLMessage message;
message.setPerformative(ACLMessage::REQUEST_WHEN);
message.setContent("actual payload data");
message.setSender(AgentID("sender-agent"));
message.addReceiver(AgentID("receiver-agent-0"));
message.addReceiver(AgentID("receiver-agent-1"));
message.addReplyTo(AgentID("sender-agent"));
message.setInReplyTo("in-reply-to-nothing");
message.setReplyBy(base::Time::now());
message.setConversationID("identifier-of-the-conservation");
message.setProtocol("protocol-of-message-flow");
message.setLanguage("a-content-language");
message.setEncoding("encoding-of-content");
message.setOntology("an-ontology");

Generate messages in a specific representation type

#include <fipa_acl/fipa_acl.h>
using namespace fipa::acl;

ACLMessage message;
message.setPerformative(ACLMessage::REQUEST_WHEN);
...
std::string encodedMsgData = MessageGenerator::create(message, fipa::acl::representation::STRING_REP);

...

ACLMessage decodedMsg;
MessageParser::parseData(encodedMsgData, decodedMsg, fipa::acl::representation::STRING_REP);

Generation and parsing of an envelope

#include <fipa_acl/fipa_acl.h>

using namespace fipa::acl;

ACLMessage message;
message.setPerformative(ACLMessage::REQUEST_WHEN);
...

ACLEnvelope envelope(message, representation::BITEFFICIENT);

std::string envelopeAndMsgData = EnvelopeGenerator::create(envelope, representation::BITEFFICIENT);

...
ACLEnvelope decodedEnvelope;
// either access the message directly
ACLMessage msg = decodedEnvelope.getACLMessage();

// or decode more explicitely to access further envelope information
EnvelopeParser::parseData(envelopeAndMsgData, decodedEnvelope, representation::BITEFFICIENT);

// Changes to an envelope are added as overlay while being transported across message
// transport services which add further information or update the receiver fields.
//
// Getting the base envelope and initial value
ACLBaseEnvelope outBaseEnvelope = decodedEnvelope.getBaseEnvelope();
// Getting the very last values, i.e. when all overlays have been applied in the right
// order
ACLBaseEnvelope outFlattenedEnvelope = decodedEnvelope.flattened();

Available bindings

Ruby bindings exist for using fipa acl

require 'fipa-message'
include FIPA
msg = ACLMessage.new
msg.setPerformative :request_whenever
msg.setProtocol "test"

sender = AgentID.new 'sender'
msg.setSender(sender)