Writing a Mad Libs program?

Ruby
1

How would I go about writing a ‘Mad Libs’ type program using Ruby?

Any examples would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

2

On Oct 3, 2009, at 9:39 AM, Britt Hayes wrote:

How would I go about writing a ‘Mad Libs’ type program using Ruby?

Any examples would be greatly appreciated.

Have a look at the solutions to this old Ruby Q.:

Ruby Quiz - Madlibs (#28)

James Edward G. II

3

I had looked at those before, but I couldn’t follow very well as I am
very new to Ruby.

Would you be able to get me started using one of those examples?

How does the mad lib script I wrote work with the commands?

4

On Oct 3, 2009, at 2:19 PM, John K. wrote:

I had looked at those before, but I couldn’t follow very well as I am
very new to Ruby.

Would you be able to get me started using one of those examples?

How does the mad lib script I wrote work with the commands?

Here’s an example of me using the code from the first solution to play
with the example in the quiz:

$ ruby madlib.rb madlib.txt
Give me a gemstone:
Ruby
Give me a gemstone:
Emerald

madlib
Our favorite language is Ruby. We think Ruby is better
than Emerald.
$ cat madlib.rb
def ask_for(str)
puts “Give me #{str}:”
$stdin.gets.chomp
end

keys={}

puts “”, ARGV[0].split(".")[0].gsub("_", " "),
IO.read(ARGV[0]).gsub(/((([^)]+)))/) {
if (t=$1) =~ /\A([^:]+):(.+)\z/
keys[$1]=ask_for($2)
else
keys[t] || ask_for(t)
end
}
$ cat madlib.txt
Our favorite language is ((gem:a gemstone)). We think ((gem)) is better
than ((a gemstone)).

Hope that helps.

James Edward G. II

5

On Oct 3, 2009, at 3:47 PM, John K. wrote:

$ ruby madlib.rb madlib.txt

I am using nano for a script shell. Does that have an effect on this?

I believe you mean that you are using nano for your text editor, not
shell. Most likely your shell is bash, if you are on a Unix and
haven’t tried to change it. The commands I showed, lines starting
with $, will work fine in bash.

Give me a gemstone:
Ruby
Give me a gemstone:
Emerald

Where does this get written?

This we me interacting with the program as it ran. It asked those
questions and I typed those answers.

madlib
Our favorite language is Ruby. We think Ruby is better
than Emerald.

So, I guess my biggest question is where does the script get written
before you start writing the program to fill in the gaps?

Using nano, I can create the file like this:

  1. I type: nano.rb
  2. I paste in the code from the web site or my last message
  3. I push control-o and then press return to write the file

Does that help?

James Edward G. II

6

$ ruby madlib.rb madlib.txt

I am using nano for a script shell. Does that have an effect on this?

Give me a gemstone:
Ruby
Give me a gemstone:
Emerald

Where does this get written?

madlib
Our favorite language is Ruby. We think Ruby is better
than Emerald.

So, I guess my biggest question is where does the script get written
before you start writing the program to fill in the gaps?

$ cat madlib.rb
def ask_for(str)
puts “Give me #{str}:”
$stdin.gets.chomp
end

keys={}

puts “”, ARGV[0].split(".")[0].gsub("_", " "),
IO.read(ARGV[0]).gsub(/((([^)]+)))/) {
if (t=$1) =~ /\A([^:]+):(.+)\z/
keys[$1]=ask_for($2)
else
keys[t] || ask_for(t)
end
}
$ cat madlib.txt
Our favorite language is ((gem:a gemstone)). We think ((gem)) is better
than ((a gemstone)).

Hope that helps.

James Edward G. II