Hello World

The simplest Perplexity application is:

from perplexity.state import State
from perplexity.user_interface import UserInterface
from perplexity.vocabulary import Vocabulary

vocabulary = Vocabulary()


def reset():
    return State([])


def hello_world():
    user_interface = UserInterface(reset, vocabulary)

    while True:
        user_interface.interact_once()
        print()


if __name__ == '__main__':
    hello_world()

The UserInterface class is the main entry point to Perplexity.

It is created and passed a function (reset() in this example) whose job is to return an object derived from the Perplexity State class that is in the “startup state”, whatever that means for the application.

The second argument is a Vocabulary object that contains all the vocabulary required for the application. We don’t yet have any vocabulary so an empty Vocabulary class is used above.

To allow user interaction, UserInterface.interact_once() is called in a loop. That’s it!

To run this:

1. Create a hello_world directory in the Perplexity project
2. Create a hello_world.py file in that directory with the code above
3. From within the hello_world directory, run: python ./hello_world.py

[Note: As always, you will need to have your environment activated as described in the Installing Perplexity topic to successfully run]

You’ll get something like this:

python ./hello_world.py
? hello!
I don't know the words: unknown, greet, discourse

? where am i?
I don't know the words: loc_nonsp, place, which, pron, pronoun

So far, it has no vocabulary so it will just keep saying, “I don’t know the words…” to any phrases typed until we implement some. That’s what the remainder of the tutorial is about.

Last update: 2023-05-16 by EricZinda [edit]