Step 1 algorithms for spinning text

Well, I spent some time putting the algorithms together to see how they can be used. The actual application I will publish in the next post. There are a few shortcomings when it comes down to avoiding duplication which I admit I didn’t think of first but I will fix them quite soon.

Here is the first pass parsing code

    Private Sub ParseIt(ByRef strTemplate As String)
        Dim icur As Integer = 0
        ReDim arrStrings(0)
        ReDim arrBelong(0)
        arrStrings(0) = ""
        arrBelong(0) = 0

        ' First pass scan
        For x = 0 To Len(strTemplate) - 1
            Dim strChar As String = strTemplate.Chars(x)
            If strChar = "{" Then
                Dim iprev As Integer = icur
                icur = arrStrings.Length
                ReDim Preserve arrBelong(icur - 1)
                arrBelong(icur - 1) = iprev
                ReDim Preserve arrStrings(icur)
                arrStrings(iprev) += "{" + Str(icur) + "}"
                arrStrings(icur) = ""
            ElseIf strChar = "}" Then
                icur = arrBelong(icur - 1)
            Else
                arrStrings(icur) += strChar
            End If
        Next

        ' Clean up the white stuff
        For x = 0 To arrStrings.Length - 1
            arrStrings(x) = arrStrings(x).Trim
        Next
    End Sub

Which is done once at the beginning and pulls out the strings that need to be processed on in a template. Although a little tricky keeping track in the arrays is pretty much straightforward.

The spinning however became a little more complex and I kept it reasoably simple to test it out.

    Private Function SpinIt(ByVal strPart As String) As String
        Dim strParts() As String = strPart.Split("|")
        Dim random As New Random()
        Dim strResult As String

        If strParts.Length > 1 Then
            ' Choose which bit randomly
            strResult = strParts(random.Next(strParts.Length)).Trim
        Else
            strResult = strPart
        End If

        ' Now process descendants

        While strResult.IndexOf("{") > 0
            Dim iStart As Integer = strResult.IndexOf("{")
            Dim iEnd As Integer = strResult.IndexOf("}")
            Dim iLoc As Integer = Val(strResult.Substring(iStart + 1, iEnd - iStart - 1))
            strResult = strResult.Substring(0, iStart) + SpinIt(arrStrings(iLoc)) + strResult.Substring(iEnd + 1)
        End While

        Return strResult
    End Function

The fault with this at the moment is in the randomness, admittedly I didn’t put any effort in there, but it does need to be fixed so that two outputs will never be the same.