Events

The event construct defines what to do when some external event occurs, including a skill request from the Paranet. When the event is preceded by the skill annotation, it is automatically registered as a skill on the Paranet.

Events have a name, a list of inputs, and a statement body. Here is an example of a typical event definition:

event newEmployeeOnboard($employee_id string) {
  new !OnboardEmployee($employee_id);
}

This defines an event named newEmployeeOnboard that is triggered by Paranet requests for the employee/onboard skill. The body of this event creates a new root goal named !OnboardEmployee. Once new goals are created, the Paraflow runtime begins the process of trying to fulfill the goal using rules and tasks described next.

Event Declaration

The event declaration has a list of parameters that are expected for the event and a statement body that is executed when the event is triggered.

<event> :=
  "event" [ <system-event> ] <identifier> <parameter-list>
  <event-stmt-block>

For example,

event newRequest($uid string) {
  new !StartRequest($id);
}

Event Body

The event body consists of a list of statements.

<event-stmt-block> := "{" <event-statement> { <event-statement> } "}"
<event-statement> :=
  <let-statement> |
  <procedure-call> |
  <if-statement> |
  <with-statement> |
  <loop-statement> |
  <transaction-statement> |
  <update-statement> |
  <new-goal-statement> |
  <update-goal-statement> |
  <return-statement> |
  <audit-statement> |
  <log-statement>