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Apprentice Joined: 17 May 2005 Posts: 108

So, on a whim and to no real purpose, I decided to make a trigger to record the results of a randomly generated lottery.

The mud periodically sends:

Winning Lotto Numbers are: 36 79 34 33 03 94 05 89 49 06

And I attempted to create a trigger that would create a variable for each number not seen before, and add 1 to the corresponding variable if it already exists. Here's the XML:

<trigger priority="4420" id="442">
<pattern>Winning Lotto Numbers are~: (%n) (%n) (%n) (%n) (%n) (%n) (%n) (%n) (%n) (%n)</pattern>
<value>#if (@%1) {#var %1 (@%1 + 1) {0} {lotto}} {#var %1 {1} {0} {lotto}}
#if (@%2) {#var %2 (@%2 + 1) {0} {lotto}} {#var %2 {1} {0} {lotto}}
#if (@%3) {#var %3 (@%3 + 1) {0} {lotto}} {#var %3 {1} {0} {lotto}}
#if (@%4) {#var %4 (@%4 + 1) {0} {lotto}} {#var %4 {1} {0} {lotto}}
#if (@%5) {#var %5 (@%5 + 1) {0} {lotto}} {#var %5 {1} {0} {lotto}}
#if (@%6) {#var %6 (@%6 + 1) {0} {lotto}} {#var %6 {1} {0} {lotto}}
#if (@%7) {#var %7 (@%7 + 1) {0} {lotto}} {#var %7 {1} {0} {lotto}}
#if (@%8) {#var %8 (@%8 + 1) {0} {lotto}} {#var %8 {1} {0} {lotto}}
#if (@%9) {#var %9 (@%9 + 1) {0} {lotto}} {#var %9 {1} {0} {lotto}}
#if (@%10) {#var %10 (@%10 + 1) {0} {lotto}} {#var %10 {1} {0} {lotto}}</value>
</trigger>

The trigger fires at every lotto, but creates no variables, nor will it add 1 to a manually created variable.

Would anyone like to tell me what foolish mistake I have made?

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

You need to use @{X} to make indirect references to variables.

Apprentice Joined: 17 May 2005 Posts: 108

I knew I'd seen something like that in a help file before, but couldn't find it again. Anyway, changed script to:

<trigger priority="4420" id="442">
<pattern>Winning Lotto Numbers are~: (%n) (%n) (%n) (%n) (%n) (%n) (%n) (%n) (%n) (%n)</pattern>
<value>#if (@{%1}) {#var %1 (@{%1} + 1) {0} {lotto}} {#var %1 {1} {0} {lotto}}
#if (@{%2}) {#var %2 (@{%2} + 1) {0} {lotto}} {#var %2 {1} {0} {lotto}}
#if (@{%3}) {#var %3 (@{%3} + 1) {0} {lotto}} {#var %3 {1} {0} {lotto}}
#if (@{%4}) {#var %4 (@{%4} + 1) {0} {lotto}} {#var %4 {1} {0} {lotto}}
#if (@{%5}) {#var %5 (@{%5} + 1) {0} {lotto}} {#var %5 {1} {0} {lotto}}
#if (@{%6}) {#var %6 (@{%6} + 1) {0} {lotto}} {#var %6 {1} {0} {lotto}}
#if (@{%7}) {#var %7 (@{%7} + 1) {0} {lotto}} {#var %7 {1} {0} {lotto}}
#if (@{%8}) {#var %8 (@{%8} + 1) {0} {lotto}} {#var %8 {1} {0} {lotto}}
#if (@{%9}) {#var %9 (@{%9} + 1) {0} {lotto}} {#var %9 {1} {0} {lotto}}
#if (@{%10}) {#var %10 (@{%10} + 1) {0} {lotto}} {#var %10 {1} {0} {lotto}}</value>
</trigger>

Same result.

Posted: Thu Jun 07, 2012 2:38 am

this worked for me, seems like something wonky going on with trying to set a var as a number only

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

How do you know that it fired? Your trigger isn't doing anything visible (beyond changing/creating some variables), and you've already said it's not doing that.

Here's an alternative that uses a datarecord variable:

Posted: Thu Jun 07, 2012 7:50 pm

Aliases and variables cannot start with a number. It's not something "wonky" but by design. I forget the reason for it, though. Anyway, seems that MattLofton's got you covered.

Apprentice Joined: 17 May 2005 Posts: 108

I tried the datarecord method, but nothing happened, not sure what I could have done wrong there.

Also tried hadar's code, which produced some very strange and not useful results, so I took a close look at it. Some of that looks odd to me.
In: "#if (@{lotto_}%2) {#var lotto_%2 (@{lotto_}%2+1)} {#var lotto_%2 1 {_nodef} lotto} "
Should the brackets {} be around the "%2" rather than the "lotto_"?
Should the 1 in the value-if-false section have brackets?
Should the class name (lotto) have brackets? All of the help files show that syntax, and I've been led to believe that cmud is less forgiving of syntax deviation by design.

In any event, this code created 19(!) variables when lotto fired, which included one for each lotto number drawn, and created 9 more equal to the last digit of each lotto number concatenated with the first digit of the following lotto number. Then it set the value to 1 plus the number drawn, rather than 1 for each instance of a particular number. so I'd have a drawing like: Winning Lotto Numbers are: 36 79 34 33 03 94 05 89 49 06
Which would make variables lotto_36, 67, 79, 93, 34, 43, 33, 30, 03, 39, 94, 40, 05, 58, 89, 94, 49, 90, 06, and if any had values, given the variable "lotto_36" the value would be 37.

I've remade the script with about 100 variations and only managed to come up with weird results that don't seem like they should even be possible. Knowing, now, that variables can't begin with numbers, explains some of those results, but thus far nothing I do seems to make this work.

Wizard Joined: 22 Mar 2007 Posts: 2320

What exactly do you mean by "nothing happened" when you tried the datarecord method? Did you check the value of @LottoNumbers? Did you check whether the trigger had actually fired? Try putting a statement like "#PRINT Lotto Trigger Fired" in the trigger so that you can see whether the trigger is actually firing. If it is not firing, the problem is probably that the trigger pattern is not matching the mud output. Double-check exactly what the mud is sending. An alternative trigger pattern you could try is:

Apprentice Joined: 17 May 2005 Posts: 108

Thank you Rahab, substituting that trigger pattern for the other caused it to fire on the first try.

Now I just wish I knew why it worked. I could never have conceived of that particular syntax, having never seen anything like it in help files. Nor have I been able to find a helpfile for %list, or any reference to it. This method of matching and capturing values without actually having to match each one specifically is completely foreign to me, though it is obviously effective. Where might I look for an explanation of such methods?

As far as I can tell, the first line creates a temporary variable which must have a value of something like 25|23|11|76|etc., 1 number for each drawn. The forall command has a helpfile, so I can see--or believe that I see--that it checks each value in the temporary variable and adds a key for each with a value equal to 1 plus that key, if it already exists. Is that more or less correct?

Wizard Joined: 22 Mar 2007 Posts: 2320

The trigger pattern is basically placing the entire string "36 79 34 33 03 94 05 89 49 06" into %1.

The %list is described in the help files; you should be able to find it under Functions or by searching on the term. Basically, it converts a string into a stringlist. The code %list(%1," ") basically says 'turn %1 into a stringlist by splitting it on every " " (space character)'. So, it converts "36 79 34 33 03 94 05 89 49 06" into the stringlist {36|79|34|33|03|94|05|89|49|06}

The #FORALL command is an easy way to loop through a stringlist. Each time through the loop, the value %i is set to the next value in the stringlist.

You probably know a little about database variables, but I'll give a quick review. A database variable is a list of key/value pairs. Basically, it is a set like: {key1=value1|key2=value2|...}. In this case, the code is creating a list where the keys are the Lotto numbers and the values are the number of times you have seen that value come up.

The code %db(@LottoNumbers,%i) returns the value associated with the key %i in the db variable @LottoNumbers.

'#ADDKEY varname key value' will set key=value in the variable varname.

So, the code

Posted: Thu Jun 21, 2012 3:50 am

BTW never listen to hadar when its past 6pm PST you can never be sure if he is drunk or not