Source : Free On-Line Dictionary of Computing

infobot
     
         A {bot} that serves as a common database of information
        (often noteworthy {URL}s) for users on a {chat} system.
        Infobots often have a simple {chatbot interface}, responding
        to key-phrases, as well as to direct queries.
     
        Here, in a real conversation, the bot Purl's first response is
        triggered by the phrase "just tell me", and its second
        response is triggered by being directly asked "perlfunc?":
     
          can someone tell me what: $num9 =
                substr($number,9,1); means
     
          eesh -- man perlfunc, look at "substr".
     
          just tell me
     
          Didn't your momma ever tell you, "Go
                look it up in the dictionary"?!
     
          eesh -- no.  that's all we'll tell
                you.  read the documentation.
     
          eesh -- if you haven't man pages or
                perldoc, you can read them on the 'net.
     
          purl, perlfunc?
     
          well, perlfunc is Perl builtin
                functions, at man perlfunc or
                http://www.perl.com/CPAN-local/doc/manual/html/pod/perlfunc.html
     
        {(http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~lenzo/infobot.html/)}.
     
        (1998-10-30)