Multi param commands

[vivien]

Hi Brett,

I've allowed the bot to have multiple parameters for its commands.

This adds 2 things:

• you can specify command such as rand2 10 40 which will return a random number between 10 and 40 (see commits for more details);
• if you want to parse every messages (for example a echo-bot which will just repeat every messages), the first word is not removed anymore. Just give the /^(.+)$/ regex works.

The things that change for the user or:

• you'll need to specify commands parameters with parenthesis. e.g. /^puts\s+(.+)$/ instead of /^puts\s+.+$/
• params sent to the callback block is either nil (if no param), a String (if just one param) or an Array of String (if more than one param). e.g. with a command like /^cmd\s+param1\s+(.+)\s+param2\s+(.+)$/, saying "cmd param1 foo param2 bar" will send ["foo", "bar"].

I've updated the readme, the sample and methods doc as well.

Regards, Vivien.

[brettstimmerman]

I think this is fine for the sample bot, but I don't want to lose the examples already in place.

The sample bot is a dead simple example to get you up and running quickly. From there, it's on you to build out your bot in any way you like. I don't want to prescribe any more than necessary to show, at a most basic level, how things work.

[vivien]

I don't really understand what you mean. The only thing existing bots need is to add parenthesis around ".+" in the command regex, a two-chars commit to have multiple parameters. What are your examples already in place? I think it's a shame not to make a nice little project like this evolve, especially when the new feature is quite simple and make it a little bit more flexible. But that's up to you... ;) Regards, v0n.

[brettstimmerman]

It's up to the user to create their own commands. The sample bot is just a very basic example of something that works. It's my hope that users will begin with the sample bot as a starting point, and build their own commands on top of it once they understand how it works.

It's not the project's place to say what commands are useful. It completely depends on what the user wants their bot to do.

[vivien]

Ok Brett, I think you totally misunderstood what I've changed! I've not added new commands, I've just added the ability to have multiple parameters in commands. The rand2 command added in the sample file is just here to show how multiple parameters commands work. It can be removed from the sample file if you'd like to keep this file dead simple for users. I hope I was a little bit more clearer.

[brettstimmerman]

Sorry for the back and forth here. I appreciate the conversation. I think I do understand your change, but I'm afraid you are not understanding why I feel it doesn't belong in jabber-bot.

My point is, jabber-bot only cares that a command has a regex and a callback when the regex is matched. Beyond that, it does not care what the regex is or what code the callback contains.

If a user wants to create a command that accepts multiple parameters, that is fine. It's up to the user to create a regex/callback pair that satisfies their needs. Jabber-bot doesn't attempt to know what you want it to do, or force on you anything it may be capable of doing. It provides you the tools to (hopefully) make it do what you want it to do. It's putty in your hands to mold as you see fit.

With that in mind, your rand2 command would make a good example of a command that accepts one or more params. If you feel like the docs could do a better job of providing richer examples, like the rand2 example, or other potential "tips n' tricks," that is one thing. But I don't think that it's worth adding rand2 at this point.

[vivien]

You said "If a user wants to create a command that accepts multiple parameters, that is fine. It's up to the user to create a regex/callback pair that satisfies their needs.". That's not possible for the moment because your code (in your current master branch) does not allow it. To allow that, the parse_command method needs to use a little trick with match.captures instead of a sub if the message includes a space. And this is just what I've done in my multi-param-commands branch. Just have a quick look at the "Files changed" section of the pull request (note that I've also removed the rand2 example in the sample file so it's still as dead simple as before.) I really hope that now you understand that I've not added a command, but just an ability. Vivien.

[brettstimmerman]

Ahh, ok. Now I understand. I'll take a closer look this week. Thanks for putting up with me being so dense before.

[vivien]

Hi Brett, This pull request was a bit messy and I have to say, I wasn't really confortable with the rebase tool. Now that, I think, you understood the idea of my request, I'll close this one, rebase and clean the code, and send you a fresh one.