freedomotic

Triggers

A trigger is a filter that permits to intercept an event on a channel.

It performs check on the event carrying values and tags and assigning a meaningful and reusable name to this restriction.

For example, an event can be the notification of time for example 10 o’Clock; a trigger can respond to time events. Suppose if the time is between 7 and 13 o’clock, you can name this trigger it's morning and reuse it to perform reactions like IF it's morning THEN turn off outdoor lights.

Therefore a trigger can be used to decide whether a notified event has to be processed or not. Whenever an event is processed by a trigger, if the trigger is consistent with its definition, then the associated commands are executed.

A reaction represents a link between a trigger and one or more commands list executed by an actuator.

In this brief tutorial the manual creation of an XML trigger is explained, however the end user can define triggers using the included graphical editor, so there is no need to edit the XML manually.

How to filter events using triggers

Events can be intercepted using triggers. each event has a default channel on which it is notified.

To know which is the default channel of a particular event see listenable events page (TODO ADD A LINK). To capture the event you just create a trigger that is listening to the same channel. For example, the PersonMoving event is published on the channel app.event.sensor.person.movement.moving.

To intercept a person’s movement you can define a trigger listening to channel app.event.sensor.person.movement.moving.

How to filter received event parameters

As said before a trigger is an event filter. It can read event parameters and filter them according to the rules defined in it. Every rule is called statement. A statement is composed of a logical value, an attribute name, an operand and a value.

The action tag can be used to listen on the default channel of a specif event. You have to insert the complete path of the Java class that implements the event. Otherwise, you can specify the channel with a custom string inside the <channel> </channel> tag.

  • logical: is used to concatenate a statement with the previous statement. The default value is AND, means that the following rule is in logical AND with the previous. At this time only the AND logical value is implemented.
  • attribute: it’s the name of the event property to filter. To know which properties are carried by an event, you have to refer to the event page.
  • operand: can be EQUALS, REGEX, GREATER_THAN, LESS_THAN, GREATER_EQUAL_THAN, LESS_EQUAL_THAN, BETWEEN_TIME. It’s used to relate the attribute with the value.
  • value: can be a string or an integer value. You can use the ANY key to match any value.

Max execution limit and flood control

Every trigger has a max-executions parameter which defines how many times this trigger can fire. This counter is reset at Freedomotic startup. If the value is -1 this trigger has no max executions limit.

Another property if suspension-time which defines for how many milliseconds this trigger is disabled after firing. The trigger cannot fire again until its suspension time is finished. Every trigger has a standard suspension time of 100ms which can be overwritten if needed setting a lower value.

Listening to Channels with wildcard paths

This feature is applicable only if you insert the custom channel path as a string in the [code] [/code] tag.

For example if a sensor generates events on channel app.events.sensors.moving.person.P003 a trigger can listen to this particular event to receive details about person P003’s movements.

Otherwise if the trigger listens to app.events.sensors.moving.person.∗ it will receive information about the movement of all people detected in the environment.

The wildcard semantic is as follows:

  • period (.) is used to separate names in a path
  • asterisk (*) is used to match any name in a path
  • greater than sign (>) is used to recursively match any destination starting from this name

Deploy a trigger

Triggers are deployed in the FREEDOMOTIC_ROOT/data/trg folder. They are files with .xtrg extension and are loaded at Freedomotic startup.

In the console you can have a view of the loaded triggers and the channel on which they are listening.

Examples

Check if a thing name in the event is ‘Kitchen Light’

<statement>
  <logical>AND</logical>
  <attribute>object.name</attribute>
  <operand>EQUALS</operand>
  <value>Kitchen Light</value>
</statement>

Check if the thing type in the event is an electric device

<statement>
  <logical>AND</logical>
  <attribute>object.type</attribute>
  <operand>REGEX</operand>
  <value>^EnvObject.ElectricDevice\.(.*)</value>
</statement>

Check if the temperature in the event is strictly greater than 20°C

<statement>
  <logical>AND</logical>
  <attribute>@event.temperature</attribute>
  <operand>GREATER_THAN</operand>
  <value>20</value>
</statement>

Check if the given time (format: HH:mm:ss) is between the specified time interval (format: HH:mm:ss-HH:mm:ss)

<statement>
  <logical>AND</logical>
  <attribute>time.current</attribute>
  <operand>TIME_BETWEEN</operand>
  <value>23:00:00-8:30:00</value>
</statement>

Check is someone exits from kitchen

<trigger>
    <name>Someone Exits from Kitchen</name>
    <description>When someone exits from kitchen area</description>
    <channel>app.event.person.zone</channel>
    <payload>
        <payload>
            <statement>
                <logical>AND</logical>
                <attribute>zone</attribute>
                <operand>EQUAL</operand>
                <value>Kitchen</value>
            </statement>
            <statement>
                <logical>AND</logical>
                <attribute>person</attribute>
                <operand>EQUAL</operand>
                <value>ANY</value>
            </statement>
            <statement>
                <logical>AND</logical>
                <attribute>action</attribute>
                <operand>EQUAL</operand>
                <value>exit</value>
            </statement>
        </payload>
    </payload>
    <delay>0</delay>
</trigger>

This trigger can filter PersonExitZone events. In that case the trigger fires only if the event is related to the kitchen zone and the person ID can be ANY (valid for ANY person). If the trigger is consistent with the event one or more commands will be executed.

A thing of type Electric Device is clicked

<trigger>
  <name>When an electric device is clicked</name>
  <description>When an electric device is clicked</description>
  <channel>app.event.sensor.object.behavior.clicked</channel>
  <payload>
    <payload>
      <statement>
        <logical>AND</logical>
        <attribute>object.type</attribute>
        <operand>REGEX</operand>
        <value>^EnvObject.ElectricDevice\.(.*)</value>
      </statement>
      <statement>
        <logical>AND</logical>
        <attribute>click</attribute>
        <operand>EQUALS</operand>
        <value>SINGLE_CLICK</value>
      </statement>
    </payload>
  </payload>
  <persistence>true</persistence>
</trigger>

This trigger will listen (and filter) events of types ObjectReceiveClick because they are sent on channel app.event.sensor.object.behavior.clicked

These are the received parameters that can be used in the trigger above

  • date.day.name EQUALS Thursday
  • date.day EQUALS 4
  • date.month.name EQUALS October
  • date.month EQUALS 10
  • date.year EQUALS 2012
  • time.hour EQUALS 18
  • time.minute EQUALS 15
  • time.second EQUALS 15
  • object.type EQUALS EnvObject.ElectricDevice.Light
  • object.name EQUALS Light one
  • object.protocol EQUALS X10
  • object.address EQUALS A01
  • sender EQUALS JavaFrontend
  • click EQUALS SINGLE_CLICK