System prompts

The System prompt directory contains the system prompts, which are included with Blueworx Voice Response when the system is installed. The system prompts do not operate any differently from the prompts you create. The only difference between system prompts and the prompts you write is that the system prompts are already written for you.

If a state table uses the System prompt directory, the state table can call a system prompt by supplying the prompt name to the state table action that plays the prompt as a parameter. If a state table uses its own prompt directory, you can create new prompts that call the system prompts (using the SYSPROMPT prompt statement). Each system prompt accepts a number as input and plays a prompt that speaks the number as one of the following:

For example, if an application passes the number 12.34 to the Currency prompt, the phrase that results is “twelve dollars and thirty-four cents.” However, passing the same number to the Real_number prompt results in the phrase “twelve and thirty-four hundredths.”

Note that although very large numbers can be stored and used by Blueworx Voice Response (using multiple precision format to store large numbers and floating point numbers), the system prompts cannot play numbers larger than the maximum size defined by the prompts. To play very large numbers, you may need to create your own system prompts.

The Small_number prompt

The Small_number system prompt plays an integer between -999 and 999 as a numeric quantity. Numbers larger than 100 are played without “and” between the word “hundred” and any of the digits. For example, an input of 123 produces the phrase “one hundred twenty-three.”

The small number prompt includes prompt statements that reference the Numbers and the Divisor voice tables.

The Whole_number prompt

The Whole_number system prompt plays a positive or negative integer of up to 12 digits as a numeric quantity. The prompt does not insert “and” between any of the units of measure or digits. For example, an input of 1103294 produces the phrase “one million one hundred three thousand two hundred ninety-four.”

Whole_number includes a prompt statement that references the Divisor voice table.

The Real_number prompt

The Real_number system prompt plays a positive or negative real number as a numeric quantity. The prompt expresses fractional amounts in one of two ways, depending on the amount:

  1. If the number is expressed up to three decimal places (tenths, hundredths, thousandths), it is played as “(number) and (number) (unit of measure).” For example, an input of 1.2 produces the phrase “one and two tenths.” An input of 1.23 produces the phrase “one and twenty-three hundredths.”
  2. If the number is expressed to more than three decimal places, it is played as “(digit) point (digit) (digit) (digit) (digit).” For example, an input of 1.2345 produces the phrase “one point two three four five.”

Note that you can change the character to be used for the decimal place by modifying the System : MPN : Decimal point character system variable (SV168). The default character is the period (.), which plays the word “point.”

The Ordinal prompt

The Ordinal system prompt plays a positive integer of up to 12 digits as an ordinal number. For example, an input of 256 produces the phrase “two hundred fifty-sixth.”

Ordinal includes prompt statements that reference the Numbers, Divisor, and Ordinal voice tables.

The Date prompt

The Date system prompt plays 8-digit input (yyyymmdd) as the month, day, and year. The convention followed is to play the name of the month, followed by the day as an ordinal number, followed by the year as two numbers. For example, an input of 19930113 produces the phrase “January thirteenth, nineteen ninety-three.”

Date includes a prompt statement that references the Month of Year voice table.

The Time prompt

The Time system prompt plays 6-digit input (hhmmss) as two numbers followed by AM or PM. The seconds value is not played. If the minutes input is 00, Time plays “o’clock” following the hours value.

Although the input to Time is in 24-hour clock time, Time plays the time using a 12-hour clock. Noon is 12 PM and midnight is 12 AM (both 000000 and 240000 are interpreted as midnight).

For example, an input of 160100 produces the phrase “four oh one PM.” An input of 110000 produces the phrase “eleven o’clock AM.”

Time includes prompt statements that reference the Numbers and Time of Day voice tables.

The Currency prompt

The Currency system prompt plays an input string as an amount of dollars and cents. For example, an input of 123.45 produces the phrase “one hundred twenty-three dollars and forty-five cents.”

Note that you can change the character to be used for the decimal place by modifying the System : MPN : Decimal point character system variable (SV168). The default character is the period (.).

The Phone prompt

The Phone system prompt plays an input string as a string of digits. For example, an input of 5551212 produces the phrase “five five five one two one two.”