textmaker

Instalation

  npm install @hacknlove/textmaker

Usage

  import TextMaker from { 'textmaker' }
  // // or
  // const TextMaker = require('textmaker')

  const textMaker = new TextMaker({
    description: ObjectWithTheTextsDescriptions,
    seed: "Some string, if you want your text to be predictable and replicable"
  })

  var text = textMaker.generate()

Text description

The text description is a Javascrit Object that contains an array with the templates, a bunch of sustitution arrays with more templates

you can check example.json

It contains string templates that includes plain text, direct sustitutions and referenced sustitutions

Set variable

The template "...((name: value))..." will set a variable called name with the value value

The value can be any template, but direct nesting is not allowed.

...((foo:...((bar:buz))...))... is not allowed.
...((foo:...$bar)) it is always allowed even if $bar can be sustituted with ...((bar:buz))...

Variable substitutions

The template ``"...%name..." will generate ...value... where `value` is the value of the variable called `name`

Direct sustitutions

The template "I want [[cake-fruit-pie]]" will generate

I want cake
I want fruit
I want pie

They can have as many options as you need, but if you need a lot of options you should consider using referenced sustitutions to keep your templates human readable.

They could be anidated so "I want [[some fresh [[fruit-juice]]-a piece of [[cake-pie]]" will generate

I want some fresh fruit
I want some fresh juice
I want a piece of cake
I want a piece of pie

You can nest as many options as you need, but you should consider using referenced sustitutions if you feel that you are loosing the vision of what is going there.

Direct sustitutions should be used to define quick simple choices.

Referenced sustitutions

Direct sustitutions are words formed only by characters from a-z, A-Z, 0-9, including the _ (underscore), that starts with a $

For instance "$foo", "$bar" "$foo_bar"

They match the javascript regexp /\$[\w]+/ that is equivalent to /\$[a-z0-9_]+/i

They are sustituted for a random template of the array in description whose key matchs

Examples

  description = {
    templates: [
      "I want $dessert"
    ],
    $dessert: [
      "cake",
      "fruit",
      "pie"
    ]
  }

  description = {
    templates: [
      "I want $dessert"
    ],
    $dessert: [
      "some fresh $healthyDesert",
      "a piece of $unhealthyDessert"
    ],
    "$healthyDesert": [
      "fruit",
      "juice"
    ],
    "$unhealthyDesert": [
      "cake",
      "pie"
    ]
  }

description.templates

This array contains the fist level templates, those that the generator picks in the first step.

It could be as complicated as you want, but it is preferable to keep them as simple as possible so they could be an index to the human eyes, so you can know at a glance what each one generates.

Process flow

The transformations are done in 4 steps:

variable setting
variable sustitutions
simple sustitutions
reference sustitutions

Each step is done iteratively until there is no more setting or substitutions to do

If one o more substitutions were done in the 4th step, the process start again from the first step. Otherwise the process ends.