Madlibs

This gem simply takes a template, does some randomizing, applies a dictionary, and produces a string. Depending on the dictionary, it can be quite humorous.

The dictionary is a simple ruby hash with keyed arrays of words, but there are a few rules.

1. Make sure your keys are plural

Ok, so maybe there is just that one.

The template has 3 main syntax entities

Very simply, <key> signifies it to do a random replace from the correlated dictionary, the name of the key is arbitrary as long as it is singular in the template and plural in the dictionary.

For example <key> would match the keys dictionary hash key.

You are ensured that you won't get the same word twice in a single generation.

Wrapping any segment of text in parenthesis immediately followed by a ? will make the generation randomly include or exclude the inner text. And yes, they can be nested.

"This is a(n example)? template."

Will result in either

"This is a template."

or

"This is an example template."

Lastly, for another element of randomness, you can provide a word list that it will choose from at random.

"This is a (great|terrible) example."

Will result in either

"This is a great example."

or

"This is a terrible example."

This can be useful for creating more entropy from a set of common small interchangeable words.

"(the|a|some|one)"

require 'madlibs'

# Create a new Madlib object, passing a template and a dictionary.  You can also
# pass nothing and assign them after the fact with `.dictionary` and `.template`
madlib = Madlibs::Madlib.new(
  'I will <verb> (the|another)( <adjective>)? <noun>',
  {
    "nouns" => [
      "proxy",
      "cache",
      "architecture",
      "fragmentation",
    ],
    "verbs" => [
      "refactor",
      "implement",
      "replicate",
      "debug",
    ],
    "adjectives" => [
      "distributed",
      "imperative",
      "virtualized",
    ]
  }
)

# Generate your string(s)

madlib.generate
# => "I will debug the architecture"

madlib.generate
# => "I will implement another imperative cache"

madlib.generate
# => "I will refactor another virtualized proxy"

Add this line to your application's Gemfile:

gem 'madlibs'

And then execute:

$ bundle install

Or install it yourself as:

$ gem install madlibs

rake test
rake build
rake install