Responding to a Message Sent to an Agent

Depending on the Behavior construction, an agent will perform either reactively in response to an incoming message or proactively upon the receipt of a specific trigger message (m_triggerMessage) or at activation. Your can support both types of execution within a single Behavior file.

Reactive Response

Reactive responses are handled within your Behavior message method. Any code found within the message method will be called once your targeted Agent receives any message.

To avoid invoking the wrong Behavior file, you can specify a specific topic (m_topic) within the senders Message object which matches the list of topics that the Behavior is interested in. Topics are associated with Behaviors when you add them to an agent.

Here’s an example of a Message being sent by senderAgent:

Message myMessage = new Message();

myMessage.m_message = "Hello";
myMessage.m_targetNodeName = "recipientNode";
myMessage.m_targetAgentName = "recipientAgent";
myMessage.m_topic = "Topic1";
sendMessage(myMessage);

Assuming recipientAgent has a Behavior that is associated with the topic “Topic1”:

addBehavior("recipientNode", "recipientAgent", "ExampleBehavior", "ExampleBheavior.jar", "Topic1");

And by setting my execution type (m_executionType) to NoExecution within my Behavior’s constructor, I ensure the action() method won’t be called:

public ExampleBehavior()
{
        m_executionType = ExecutionType.NoExecution;
        m_description = "Example Behavior";
        m_name = "ExampleBehavior";
}

public boolean setUp(Result result)
{
        System.out.println("begin");
        result.m_executionResult = ExecutionResultType.CompletionSuccess;
        return true;
}

public boolean action(Result result)
{
        System.out.println("Hello World from Action");
        result.m_executionResult = ExecutionResultType.CompletionSuccess;
        return true;
}

public boolean message(Message message, Result result)
{
        System.out.println("Got message "+ message.m_message + " on topic " + message.m_topic);
        result.m_executionResult = ExecutionResultType.CompletionSuccess;
        return true;
}

public boolean tearDown(Result result)
{
        System.out.println("end");
        result.m_executionResult = ExecutionResultType.CompletionSuccess;
        return true;
}

If all goes well, you should see the following response from the recipient (recipientAgent).

begin
Got message Hello on topic Topic1

Here’s the same example of a Message being sent by the Server instead:

1. In the SAGE App select Send Message to recipientAgent on recipientNode.

2. Type message “Hello”.

3. Type topic “Topic1”.

4. Click the Ok button.

If all goes well, you should see the same response as above from the recipient (recipientAgent).

begin
Got message Hello on topic Topic1

Proactive Response

Proactive responses are handled within your Behavior action method. Any code found within the action method will be called once your targeted Agent receives the trigger message.

Here’s an example of a Message being sent by senderAgent:

Message myMessage = new Message();

myMessage.m_message = "Bye";
myMessage.m_targetNodeName = "recipientNode";
myMessage.m_targetAgentName = "recipientAgent";
sendMessage(myMessage);

By setting my execution type (m_executionType) to OnMessage and specifying a trigger message within my Behavior’s constructor, I can invoke the action() method:

public ExampleBehavior()
{
        m_executionType = ExecutionType.OnMessage;
        m_description = "Example Behavior";
        m_name = "ExampleBehavior";
        m_triggerMessage = "Bye";

}

public boolean setUp(Result result)
{
        System.out.println("begin");
        result.m_executionResult = ExecutionResultType.CompletionSuccess;
        return true;
}

public boolean action(Result result)
{
        System.out.println("Hello World from Action");
        result.m_executionResult = ExecutionResultType.CompletionSuccess;
        return true;
}

public boolean message(Message message, Result result)
{
        System.out.println("Got message "+ message.m_message + " on topic " + message.m_topic);
        result.m_executionResult = ExecutionResultType.CompletionSuccess;
        return true;
}

public boolean tearDown(Result result)
{
        System.out.println("end");
        result.m_executionResult = ExecutionResultType.CompletionSuccess;
        return true;
}

If all goes well, you should see the following response from the recipient (recipientAgent).

begin
Hello World from Action

Here’s the same example of a Message being sent by the Server instead:

1. In the SAGE App select Send Message to recipientAgent on recipientNode.

2. Type message “Bye”.

3. Click the Ok button.

If all goes well, you should see the same response as above from the recipient (recipientAgent).

begin
Hello World from Action

You can also make use of OneShot, Cyclical, or TimedCyclical proactive execution types (m_executionType), which respond as soon as the Agent has been activated, to get the best of both worlds:

public ExampleBehavior()
{
        m_executionType = ExecutionType.OneShot;
        m_description = "Example Behavior";
        m_name = "ExampleBehavior";

}

public boolean setUp(Result result)
{
        System.out.println("begin");
        result.m_executionResult = ExecutionResultType.CompletionSuccess;
        return true;
}

public boolean action(Result result)
{
        System.out.println("Hello World from Action");
        result.m_executionResult = ExecutionResultType.CompletionSuccess;
        return true;
}

public boolean message(Message message, Result result)
{
        System.out.println("Got message "+ message.m_message);
        setAgentActive("recipientNode","recipientAgent", false);
        result.m_executionResult = ExecutionResultType.CompletionSuccess;
        return true;
}

public boolean tearDown(Result result)
{
        System.out.println("end");
        result.m_executionResult = ExecutionResultType.CompletionSuccess;
        return true;
}

Assuming the recipientAgent got a message AFTER the agent was activated, you should see the following response from the recipient (recipientAgent).

begin
Hello World from Action
Got message Bye
end

In this example, teardown() method was invoked last as the agent was deactivated using the setAgentActive(false) method.