Lich - Regular expressions and negative numbers

[Belathus]

Okay. I'm trying to match the result of an open roll, negative numbers and all, and the results. Now, I'm using regular expressions to do this. Positive numbers work great. However, when a negative number comes up (along with that pesky dash) it will not match.

Here's what I've tried:
string_in = matchwait(/^\[Roll result: .?[0-9]+ \(open d100: .?[0-9]+\) (Penalties|Bonuses): [0-9]+\]/)

string_in = matchwait(/^\[Roll result: \S?[0-9]+ \(open d100: \S?[0-9]+\) (Penalties|Bonuses): [0-9]+\]/)

string_in = matchwait(/^\[Roll result: [-]?[0-9]+ \(open d100: [-]?[0-9]+\) (Penalties|Bonuses): [0-9]+\]/)

etc. I do not understand why the wildcard character "." would not match the dash, as it should match any character that isn't a linebreak. Of course, \S should match any character that isn't whitespace. So... I don't really understand what is going on here.

-Andrew

[Celephais]

Post an example of what's failing as well. I don't kow Lich but I know RegExs, try putting the dash in the brackets...
[\-,0-9]+

[Belathus]

Alrighty.

This works:
[Roll result: 153 (open d100: 94) Penalties: 8]
You raise your heel high, bringing it down solidly on Harloch's foot!
Harloch howls in pain, hopping around and clutching his foot!
Roundtime: 4 sec.
R>
[cman: The endroll is 153 and the die roll was 94.]

This does not work:
[Roll result: -284 (open d100: 17) Penalties: 8]
You try to stomp the foot of Harloch, but miss!
You stumble!
Roundtime: 10 sec.

Neither do negative open die rolls, etc.
Additionally, I tried your suggestion. The script is as follows:

string_in = matchwait(/^\[Roll result: [\-,0-9]+ \(open d100: [\-,0-9]+\) (Penalties|Bonuses): [0-9]+\]/)
line = string_in.slice(/Roll result: [\-,0-9]+/)
endroll = line.slice(/[\-,0-9]+/)
line = string_in.slice(/d100: [\-,0-9]+\)/)
droll = line.slice(/[\-,0-9]+\)/).chop
echo "The endroll is #{endroll.to_s} and the die roll was #{droll}."

[Celephais]

Alrighty.

This works:
[Roll result: 153 (open d100: 94) Penalties: 8]
You raise your heel high, bringing it down solidly on Harloch's foot!
Harloch howls in pain, hopping around and clutching his foot!
Roundtime: 4 sec.
R>
[cman: The endroll is 153 and the die roll was 94.]

This does not work:
[Roll result: -284 (open d100: 17) Penalties: 8]
You try to stomp the foot of Harloch, but miss!
You stumble!
Roundtime: 10 sec.

Neither do negative open die rolls, etc.
Additionally, I tried your suggestion. The script is as follows:

string_in = matchwait(/^\[Roll result: [\-,0-9]+ \(open d100: [\-,0-9]]+\) (Penalties|Bonuses): [0-9]+\]/)
line = string_in.slice(/Roll result: [\-,0-9]+/)
endroll = line.slice(/[\-,0-9]]+/)
line = string_in.slice(/d100: [\-,0-9]+\)/)
droll = line.slice(/[\-,0-9]\)/).chop
echo "The endroll is #{endroll.to_s} and the die roll was #{droll}."

Double closing brackets probably don't help... if that is just a copy paste problem, your regex is perfectly fine and should work.

[Celephais]

Do the escapes need to be escaped in ruby?

\\[Roll result: [\\-,0-9]+ \\(open d100: [\\-,0-9]+\\) (Penalties|Bonuses): [0-9]+\\]

[Belathus]

If that were the case, I don't think it'd quite work with positive rolls. It works in all situations unless that blasted dash is involved, then even the most accepting wildcard characters won't match the dash for the negative value.

-Andrew

[Celephais]

The first line.slice line also has double brackets... although I agree w/ you it shouldn't matter, sounds like a problem w/ ruby... find a hyphenated item somewhere in game, make a regex that will respond to it and then tap the time (so you can on demand produce negatives... i guess that would work w/ negative bonus to stats too).

also try replacing the dash in the regex with: \u2010 or \u002D

[Belathus]

Weird. Continuing to test the script, I've learned that it will match the dash after the "d100:" but not for the endroll.

[Roll result: 48 (open d100: -11) Penalties: 8]
You raise your heel high, bringing it down solidly on Harloch's foot!
Harloch wiggles his toes slightly, making sure they're all there.
Roundtime: 4 sec.
R>
[cman: 48 and -11. The difference is 59.]

How wonky.

[Belathus]

Another update.

I've noticed that the expression will catch small negative numbers, like -17 and -56, etc. However, it will not catch large negative numbers, like -235.

I'm wondering if it has issues catching 4 characters vs. 3 characters or if the format of the line changes in some non-visible manner when dealing with larger strings.

[Celephais]

I would suggest making it [\-,0-9]*?[0-9]+ and trying it, that will tell you if the RegEx has a problem w/ 4 characters (it's possible your later code has a problem w/ it and not the first RegEx), instead of a formatting error.

[Belathus]

This whole issue is just confusing. The regexes are written fine. It's just that sometimes, for some inexplicable reason, the script won't pick up the line. Even if I shorten the regex to just match the unchanging letters (like "d100:") it won't pick up the line. Most commonly it doesn't pick the line up when large numbers are involved, but it also won't pick up the line sometimes when small postive numbers are involved (apparantly when there is little difference between the die roll and the end roll). I've never seen anything like this before, and, well, I'm just confused as to why it would be like this.

[Shaelun]

Your code is flawless and works beautifully, with one tiny exception: `matchwait' expects a string, and you're passing it a regular expression object. In a nutshell, the program ends up trying to convert the regular expression into a corresponding string and it's not doing it properly (frankly I'm surprised it worked at all). I fixed it for the next version, for whatever it's worth.

You can change it to using single quotes (apostrophes), or use `waitforre' instead of `matchwait' (note that `waitforre' takes a regular expression and returns a "MatchData" object, which you can convert to the matching string by calling `.to_s' on it, as seen below).



matchDataObject = waitforre /Hi there, I'm a regular expression/
string_in = matchDataObject.to_s
........ (insert the rest of your code here) .......

[Belathus]

Ah. So, that's my issue! Yeah, it works, but for some odd reason, it doesn't seem to work consistently at all, without much rhyme or reason, sometimes. I'll try the waitforre... and I'll remember that particular command in the future. Thanks!