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Newbie Joined: 15 Mar 2006 Posts: 9

I'm trying to setup a trigger from within an alias, making use of a variable in the pattern. Here's the alias:

Wizard Joined: 22 Mar 2007 Posts: 2320

There isn't really an easy way to do what you want. Both variables and function calls are valid within trigger patterns, so you can't just put them in a trigger pattern like that and have it evaluated the way you want. You could probably work around it by concatenating a string with your intended command line, and then performing an #EXEC on it.

What I would suggest is a completely different method. What exactly are you trying to do? I suspect that what you ultimately want is something that watches for character names and highlights them or responds to them. Have you considered using a stringlist? If you have a trigger with a pattern of "@characterlist", and @characterlist was a stringlist like {Boffo|Bill|Bob}, then the trigger would fire on any line containing Boffo, or Bill, or Bob. That way you don't need a dozen different triggers--a single trigger works for all of them, and all you have to do is add or delete names from @characterlist.

If this isn't what you want, tell us what you actually want to do with this code.

GURU Joined: 23 Dec 2000 Posts: 4834 Location: USA

Have you tried %pat()? In Zmud, the way to do this would be by adding more % to the variable (ie, %%1). That got really confusing to follow, however, so Zugg gave us %pat(). Not sure it'd apply in this situation, however, since I never had a need for this function.

Wizard Joined: 22 Mar 2007 Posts: 2320

Actually, I made an error earlier. You need braces around the variable, to make it search for individual members of the stringlist. The pattern for what I suggested should be: {@characterlist}

Newbie Joined: 15 Mar 2006 Posts: 9

You're partially correct in that it's to do with character recognition. I've considered the stringlist, but getting a stringlist to do what I need is beyond my admittedly meagre abilities with Zscript, or maybe it's just not possible, I dunno. But I'm pretty sure it can be done, just not by me.

The mud I play on has short descs for characters and no names. Often, being an absentminded fellow, I forget the names of characters, even though I know who they are. Also, it's a big stumbling block for newbies to the genre, not seeing a character name on screen.

What I'd LIKE to do, end result is:

Have descriptions and associated character names show up in a window docked to the session window whenever those characters appear IG. So, let us assume that there's a guy who goes by the short description of "An overly obese, bald-headed man", whose name I know to be "Cheeseburger". Cheeseburger shows up, and my child window ought to display something like this:

Posted: Wed Feb 24, 2010 1:09 pm

#EXEC %concat("#TRIGGER {@",%1,"desc} {#SAY Test}") will work. To get the variable to expand, you'll need to execute it like this.

*shrug*

I'm too tired to do anything like show a better way to handle it, though. :P

Charneus

Newbie Joined: 15 Mar 2006 Posts: 9

Wizard Joined: 22 Mar 2007 Posts: 2320

Yeah, Charneus has demonstrated the #EXEC method I hinted at but was too tired to work out. Thanks, Charneus!

Since you want to associate a list of short descs with names, you could do it with a database variable, using the variable in the pattern as I described above. If you're curious, I can work out the code, but the #EXEC method should work fine for you.

By the way, having the short descs and names pop up in a separate window is a clever solution. A while back I was pondering ways to handle a similar situation, compounded by the fact that the short descs were not necessarily unique. So I didn't want to simply replace the short desc, or even add the name after the desc in the mud output. A separate window is a good idea. If it scrolls, the most recently seen people will be on the visible portion.

Newbie Joined: 15 Mar 2006 Posts: 9