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Wizard Joined: 26 Mar 2008 Posts: 1547

Is it impossible to use variables inside of %regex?

The following: %regex(%trigger, "Your (?:@_test1) (?:@_test2)(?:s) ([\w '-,]+)", @_target)
or: %regex(%trigger, "Your (?:"@_test1") (?:"@_test2")(?:s) ([\w '-,]+)", @_target)

doesn't match:
Your slash maims a minotaur spectator

even when @_test1=slash and @_test2=maim

However, if I take that pattern out, put it in a trigger and mark it as regex, it suddenly works just fine.

Posted: Thu Jun 24, 2010 4:40 pm

First, Variables are *never* expanded within " quotes. In your second example, you are trying to use implicit concat, which is not reliable. The correct way to do this is:

Wizard Joined: 26 Mar 2008 Posts: 1547

Thanks, Zugg. I need to use %concat() more often than I do, most likely.

Edit: Hmm, interestingly enough, that exact concat didn't match either. Label me confused.

Posted: Thu Jun 24, 2010 5:39 pm

Something else is wrong then. Try assigning the %concat to a variable and then use the variable in the %regex call and print the variable out for debugging to be sure it is constructing the pattern correctly.

Wizard Joined: 26 Mar 2008 Posts: 1547

I've never really used the debug window much, but it wasn't showing the values of the local variables to me, even with every message turned on except ansi codes.

However, I did try:

$_pattern=%concat("Your (?:", %1, ") (?:does )?(?:", %replace(%2, "*", "\*"), ")(?: things to)? ([\w '-,]+)")
%regex(%trigger, $_pattern, $target)

And that worked just fine. Which works enough for this trigger, but I'm still quite confused why it won't work with variables, I can play with that later I suppose.