String Patterns

[Layback_]

Hi all,

Just got a quick question about String Pattern Match in Lua.

I was trying to switch status bar texture of Legion's new nameplate.

In order to achieve this, I'll have to get a reference to health bar frame of nameplate.

It looks like new nameplates have a name pattern of "NamePlateXUnitFrame" where X is a number.

I have gone through the following tutorials, but still unsure of how String pattern in Lua works and how I could utilize match function.

https://www.lua.org/pil/20.2.html
https://www.lua.org/pil/20.1.html
http://lua-users.org/wiki/PatternsTutorial

Could I please get a help regarding this?

Thank you.

[semlar]

https://wow.gamepedia.com/Pattern_matching this page might help explain it better.

The pattern would just be string:match("^NamePlate%d+UnitFrame$")

[Layback_]

Originally Posted by semlar https://wow.gamepedia.com/Pattern_matching this page might help explain it better. The pattern would just be string:match("^NamePlate%d+UnitFrame$")

Hi semlar,

Thank you for your reply and that page will definitely save my life!

God... looks much neater than official Lua page...

[SDPhantom]

I used a hook in the default nameplate system to access newly created nameplates in order to modify them.

hooksecurefunc(NamePlateDriverFrame,"OnNamePlateCreated",function(self,base)
--  HealthBar is base.UnitFrame.healthBar
--  Note this runs every time a UnitFrame is to be fetched or generated for a nameplate
end);

[Layback_]

Originally Posted by SDPhantom I used a hook in the default nameplate system to access newly created nameplates in order to modify them. hooksecurefunc(NamePlateDriverFrame,"OnNamePlateCreated",function(self,base) --  HealthBar is base.UnitFrame.healthBar --  Note this runs every time a UnitFrame is to be fetched or generated for a nameplate end);

Hi SDPhantom,

that approach seems better!

I'll have a go with it

Thank you!

[TimothyLuke]

I have a variant question on this same theme. What if you are looking for magic characters in a string?

eg tring to find the instance of "[somestuffhere]" I have tried

• \[
• %[
• [
• \\[
• .*?(\\[)
• /\[/g
• /.*?(\[)/g

local leftstr = string.find("/cast [combat]!Consecration", "%[")

I am <maxwell smart voice>this close</maxwell smart voice> from being able to translate macros from enUS to local.

[TimothyLuke]

I found a way but its not pretty

  local leftfound = false
  for i = 1, #str do
    local c = str:sub(i,i)
    if c == "[" and not leftfound then
      leftfound = true
      leftstr = i
    end
    if c == "]" then
      rightstr = i
    end
  end

[Lombra]

You escape with %.

local leftstr = string.find("/cast [combat]!Consecration", "%[")

This works for me.

[SDPhantom]

%b matches enclosures with the start and end char following it. For example %b[] matches anything in square brackets (don't need to escape as it's defined as part of the character class). This also handles nesting if you need it supported.

PS: The ! ability prefix no longer works in 7.0. Not that would work anyway on abilities that don't toggle.

[TimothyLuke]

Originally Posted by SDPhantom %b matches enclosures with the start and end char following it. For example %b[] matches anything in square brackets (don't need to escape as it's defined as part of the character class). This also handles nesting if you need it supported. PS: The ! ability prefix no longer works in 7.0. Not that would work anyway on abilities that don't toggle.

I started with %b[] and %[ but it didn't work on the Spanish (esMX) client for some reason.

[semlar]

Originally Posted by SDPhantom PS: The ! ability prefix no longer works in 7.0

This isn't true. Obviously it does nothing for consecration, but something like /cast !bear form will not shift you out of bear form (I just tried it).

[SDPhantom]

I guess it was a bug they fixed. It wasn't working for a while in beta.
I'll have to redo my bars again.