CLIPS: slots within multislots - oop

Question

I am currently working in CLIPS and I am new to it. I am trying to replicate the following information in a CLIPS deftemplate:
[Person, [Class,Class],[[M 9,11],[F,9,11]]]
It has a person, multiple classes that they can take and the times that they can take the class. I try to replicate this information in the following deftemplate:
(deftemplate person
(slot Name)
(multislot Class)
(multislot Available))
My problem is I do not understand what I am supposed to do in the available multislot because it has three inputs. Is there a way that I can make slots within a multislot? I have looked online for ways to do this but have not been able to correctly solve this problem.

Answer 1

Here are four different approaches. I would suggest something similar to approach 3 or 4 since these involve simple linkages between facts/instances.
CLIPS> (clear) ; Approach 1
CLIPS>
(deftemplate person
(slot Name)
(multislot Class)
(multislot Available))
CLIPS>
(deffacts people
(person (Name Frank)
(Class Biology Calculus)
(Available M 9 11 F 9 11)))
CLIPS>
(deffunction #-of-triplets (?mf)
(div (length$ ?mf) 3))
CLIPS>
(deffunction nth-triplet (?mf ?n)
(subseq$ ?mf (+ 1 (* (- ?n 1) 3))(* ?n 3)))
CLIPS>
(defrule print-availability
(person (Name ?name)
(Available $?a))
=>
(loop-for-count (?i (#-of-triplets ?a))
(bind ?triplet (nth-triplet ?a ?i))
(bind ?d (nth$ 1 ?triplet))
(bind ?b (nth$ 2 ?triplet))
(bind ?e (nth$ 3 ?triplet))
(printout t ?name " " ?d " " ?b " " ?e crlf)))
CLIPS> (reset)
CLIPS> (run)
Frank M 9 11
Frank F 9 11
CLIPS> (clear) ; Approach 2
CLIPS>
(deftemplate person
(slot Name)
(multislot Class)
(multislot Available-Weekday)
(multislot Available-Begin)
(multislot Available-End))
CLIPS>
(deffacts people
(person (Name Frank)
(Class Biology Calculus)
(Available-Weekday M F)
(Available-Begin 9 9)
(Available-End 11 11)))
CLIPS>
(defrule print-availability
(person (Name ?name)
(Available-Weekday $?f1 ?d $?)
(Available-Begin $?f2 ?b $?)
(Available-End $?f3 ?e $?))
(test (= (length$ ?f1)
(length$ ?f2)
(length$ ?f3)))
=>
(printout t ?name " " ?d " " ?b " " ?e crlf))
CLIPS> (reset)
CLIPS> (run)
Frank M 9 11
Frank F 9 11
CLIPS> (clear) ; Approach 3
CLIPS>
(deftemplate person
(slot Name)
(slot ID)
(multislot Class))
CLIPS>
(deftemplate availability
(slot owner-ID)
(slot Weekday)
(slot Begin)
(slot End))
CLIPS>
(deffacts information
(person (Name Frank) (ID 1)
(Class Biology Calculus))
(availability (owner-ID 1) (Weekday M) (Begin 9) (End 11))
(availability (owner-ID 1) (Weekday F) (Begin 9) (End 11)))
CLIPS>
(defrule print-availability
(person (Name ?name) (ID ?id))
(availability (owner-ID ?id) (Weekday ?d) (Begin ?b) (End ?e))
=>
(printout t ?name " " ?d " " ?b " " ?e crlf))
CLIPS> (reset)
CLIPS> (run)
Frank F 9 11
Frank M 9 11
CLIPS> (clear) ; Approach 4
CLIPS>
(defclass PERSON
(is-a USER)
(slot Name)
(multislot Class)
(multislot Available))
CLIPS>
(defclass AVAILABILITY
(is-a USER)
(slot Weekday)
(slot Begin)
(slot End))
CLIPS>
(definstances information
(of PERSON (Name Frank)
(Class Biology Calculus)
(Available (make-instance of AVAILABILITY (Weekday M) (Begin 9) (End 11))
(make-instance of AVAILABILITY (Weekday F) (Begin 9) (End 11)))))
CLIPS>
(defrule print-availability
(object (is-a PERSON) (Name ?name) (Available $? ?a $?))
(object (is-a AVAILABILITY) (name ?a))
=>
(printout t ?name " " (send ?a get-Weekday)
" " (send ?a get-Begin)
" " (send ?a get-End) crlf)))
CLIPS> (reset)
CLIPS> (run)
Frank F 9 11
Frank M 9 11
CLIPS>