Lua / mudlet, variable in trigger pattern

Shecks

Can it be done, and if so, how? My googling skills have been exhausted, thanks for any help . Ex Variable name: test Pattern to match: "blah @test blah" So obviously, if test = "cheese", "blah cheese blah" would match.

Shecks

Apparently my post ignored the line breaks. Sorry about that...

Xli

Trigger: blah (\w+) blah

if matches[2] == "cheese" then

doSomeFunkyStuff()

else

doSomeOtherFunkyStuff()

end

Shecks

That more of a workaround, which is what I've been doing. In this case I would prefer actually just matching the variable itself. It would actually be better to just re-make the trigger every time the variable changes, with the variables value hard set into the pattern. That's still a workaround though, and is poor coding IMO.

Xli

I'm not sure what it is you're asking for. Why would you need to remake the trigger? The whole point of a variable is that it is variable... or am I missing something?  :-/

Shecks

I don't want the trigger to "trigger" for every possible match, then use if statements after the fact.  I only want the trigger to fire if it actually matches the variable.  There is a big difference, time wise.

In zMud, I could use #Trigger trig_highlight_target {@target} {#co ....}, and that was fine.  I didn't have to make a trigger that fired on every single word sent from the mud and then use an #if to see if it matched @target.

Big difference there.

Iocun

It's not possible to include a variable in a pattern. AFAIK, allowing Mudlet to be capable of this would make trigger matching as a whole less efficient.

So you still have to decide between a wildcard trigger and checking it against a variable afterwards, or a temp trigger that is re-created any time your variable changes.

Orzaansyn

Maybe what you wish is:

string.find(matches[1], "<string>")

Which will match the string with the whole trigger match (and not only the capture). Exemple.

trigger: Royal with cheese

function isMatched(str)

if string.find(matches[1], str) ~= nil then return true else return false end

end

isMatched("cheese") -> true

With your exemple, you maybe need to test an array of value:

trigger: The mouse eats the cheese

testArray={"cheese","cat","jester"}

function isMatchedArray(arrayToTest) 

for i=1,#arrayToTest do 

if isMatched(arrayToTest[i]) then return true end end

end

isMatchedArray(testArray) -> true (but also true with The mouse eats the cat and The mouse eats the jester)

You can even combine with patterns. Exemple:

isMatched("[0-9] cheeses?") will return true with The mouse eats 1 cheese and The mouse eats 5 cheeses

Shecks

Both choices will work, however I think a temp trigger will be far more efficient, even if sloppy.  Thanks peeps.

As a side note, can you group things in a ? in regex pattern matching?  As in, an all or nothing "might appear, might not" phrase?

For instance, alias "fs" (for farsee) is ^fs\s(\S).  To make it work with either "fs" alone, or "fs Sarapis", I made it ^fs\s?(\S)?.  However, this has the unintentional side-effect of allowing "fsh" actually trigger the alias.  This is messing up several of my short aliases (alias 't' for example).  What I'd like to do is put the ? attachment on the \s(\S) all together in one "block".  Can this be done?

Iocun

For that kind of aliases, I usually use:

^fs(?: (\w+))?$

The (\w+) here captures the argument, if you use one. The (?: )? around it makes it, plus a leading space, optional, while ensuring that this outer block isn't also captured by use of the ?: modifier.

Or, if you prefer your notation with \s and \S:

^fs(?:\s(\S+))?$

Shecks

Fantastic, thanks Iocun.  I started using \S because I incorrectly thought \w+ included white space (which it doesn't).  \w+ works fine .  So do the ?: brackets.  Thanks!

Shecks

Dragonknight

You probably didn't put in a proper if statement for the alias.

if matches[2] ~= nil then
      send("farsee "..matches[2],false)
else
       send("farsee "..target,false)
end

Iocun

You must have misspelled something then, because that's literally the farsee alias I've been using for a very long time.

Also, as code for this trigger, I use:

send("farsee " .. (matches[2] or target))

Much easier than an if construct.

Shecks

Vadimuses

If you really want to do it, you can, one of the ways is:

But directly putting a variable into a trigger pattern indeed is not efficient and not worth the tradeoff in convenience.

Shecks

Ah, nice. 

Nizaris

@Shecks:

There are better ways of doing this, as have been noted above, but, you should try this one.

test = "cheese"

Alias regex: ^blah (\w+) blah$

f = loadstring("return " .. matches[2])

echo(f())

Should print "cheese" if we put in "blah test blah".

Mind you, I have a full Lua implementation on my machine. I'm not sure if loadstring() is available in the streamlined version of Lua packaged with Mudlet.

Eld

Nizaris said:

@Shecks:

There are better ways of doing this, as have been noted above, but, you should try this one.

test = cheese

Alias regex: ^blah (\w+) blah$

f = loadstring("return " .. matches[2])

echo(f())

Should print "cheese" if we put in "blah test blah".

Mind you, I have a full Lua implementation on my machine. I'm not sure if loadstring() is available in the streamlined version of Lua packaged with Mudlet.

If test is a global variable, I believe you could accomplish the same thing with:

echo(_G[matches[2]])

Nizaris

Eld said:

Nizaris said:

@Shecks:

There are better ways of doing this, as have been noted above, but, you should try this one.

test = cheese

Alias regex: ^blah (\w+) blah$

f = loadstring("return " .. matches[2])

echo(f())

Should print "cheese" if we put in "blah test blah".

Mind you, I have a full Lua implementation on my machine. I'm not sure if loadstring() is available in the streamlined version of Lua packaged with Mudlet.

If test is a global variable, I believe you could accomplish the same thing with:

echo(_G[matches[2]])

Ah, cool. There's a table with all global variables.

Vadimuses

Nizaris said:

Mind you, I have a full Lua implementation on my machine. I'm not sure if loadstring() is available in the streamlined version of Lua packaged with Mudlet.

Lua available in Mudlet is not cut down in any manner.

Nizaris

Vadimuses said:

Nizaris said:

Mind you, I have a full Lua implementation on my machine. I'm not sure if loadstring() is available in the streamlined version of Lua packaged with Mudlet.

Lua available in Mudlet is not cut down in any manner.

Ah, I was having difficulty with the socket library once. Though, I think that's part of the extended libraries, not the core implementation.

Vadimuses

Lua's philosophy is "batteries not included" - there is no socket library in the core Lua, and in fact we've added a couple of useful ones to it.