Synopsis: Converting a short description to relevant keywords. April 98
From erwin@pip.dknet.dk Wed Apr 15 22:58:44 1998
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 22:58:40 +0200 (MET DST)
From: "Erwin S. Andreasen" <erwin@pip.dknet.dk>
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Reply-To: erwin@pip.dknet.dk
To: rom@rom.org
Subject: Re: Name checking against mobs
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On Thu, 16 Apr 1998, Zimmer wrote:

> That is.. existing players w/ mobile names wouldn't be affected but new
> players still wouldn't be allowed to create w/ mobile names.

Mention of names and keywords prompts me to share this piece of code I use
for the medit_short command: it automatically derives the keywords from
the short description, skipping probably unimportant numbers and puts them
in keywords. So, you just do "short the ugly little boy" and get "boy
little ugly" as keywords in addition to setting the short description.

This is done in reverse order, since I assume the first keyword is the
important one that can be used as a short-short description in certain
places (e.g. in death messages where a weapon is used to kill someone,
rather than writing: 

Your >> the scimitar of ultimate pain << bites deep into $N, in the sudden
stillness $E totters and then falls... 

... it's just "Your scimitar bites deep... ".

Anyway, the code is pretty simple, and looks like this (I leave figuring
out where to actually call this function an exercsise to the reader :)

// convert short description to a keyword list, return it str_dup'ed
char * short_to_name (const char *short_desc)
{
	char name[MSL], tmp[MSL];
	char arg[MIL];

	name[0] = NUL;
	
	// Strip color for short_desc
	// Weird cast, I don't even remember why anymore.. :)
	short_desc = (char*)nocolor(short_desc);
	do
	{	
		short_desc = one_argument(short_desc, arg);
		if (strlen(arg) > 2 && str_cmp(arg, "the") && str_cmp(arg,"some") && str_cmp(arg, "with"))
		{
			sprintf (tmp, "%s%s%s", arg, name[0] ? " " : "", name);
			strcpy (name, tmp);
		}
	}
	while (arg[0]);
	
	if (!name[0])
		strcpy (name, "no name");
	
	return str_dup(name);
}





==============================================================================
Erwin Andreasen   Herlev, Denmark <erwin@pip.dknet.dk>  UNIX System Programmer
<URL:http://www.abandoned.org/drylock/>     <*>         (not speaking for) DDE
==============================================================================