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Content

The KQML language can be viewed as being divided into three layers: the content layer, the message layer and the communication layer. KQML messages are oblivious to the content they carry. Although in current implementations of the language there is no support for non--ASCII content, there is nothing in the language that would prevent such support. The language offers a minimum set of performatives that covers a basic repertoire of communicative acts. They constitute the message layer of the language and are to be interpreted as speech acts. Although there is no ``right'' necessary and sufficient set of communicative acts, KQML designers tried to find the middle ground between the two extremes: 1) providing a small set of primitives thereby requiring overloading at the content level; and 2) providing an extensive set of acts, where inevitably acts will overlap one another and/or embody fine distinctions. The communication layer encodes a set of features to the message which describe the lower level communication parameters, such as the identity of the sender and recipient, and a unique identifier associated with the communication.