Obtaining NPC Titles

Aezay · 03-20-09, 06:29 AM

What is the best way to obtain NPC titles?

Currently I check the second line of the GameTooltip in an OnTooltipSetUnit script, looking if it contains the level information (e.g. Level 80 Humanoid) and if not, I assume it is the NPC title.

This method has some problems when it comes to localisation though. The word "Level" will be different depending on what client is used, so I figured I could make it match TOOLTIP_UNIT_LEVEL which is "Level %s" on enUS. Specifically I matched this, which is "^Level .+":

Code:

"^"..TOOLTIP_UNIT_LEVEL:gsub("%%s",".+")

But the problem is, even this doesn't match on all locals. And as I would really hate adding localisation to my addon(s), does anyone know of an easier way to figure out the NPC title, without depending on localisation?

I have a bonus question when it comes to code like this:

Code:

local _, _, _, _, _, value = SomeFunc();

How does the underscore work in Lua precisely? Does Lua know that underscores shouldn't be set, or does it just make one local variable in this block and set the first five parameters to it? Also, is this code good, or is it better done using select(6,SomeFunc())?

Ravendwyr · 03-20-09, 06:46 AM

Originally Posted by Aezay

What is the best way to obtain NPC titles?

Currently I check the second line of the GameTooltip in an OnTooltipSetUnit script, looking if it contains the level information (e.g. Level 80 Humanoid) and if not, I assume it is the NPC title.

This method has some problems when it comes to localisation though. The word "Level" will be different depending on what client is used, so I figured I could make it match TOOLTIP_UNIT_LEVEL which is "Level %s" on enUS. Specifically I matched this, which is "^Level .+":

Code:

"^"..TOOLTIP_UNIT_LEVEL:gsub("%%s",".+")

But the problem is, even this doesn't match on all locals. And as I would really hate adding localisation to my addon(s), does anyone know of an easier way to figure out the NPC title, without depending on localisation?

The way CowTip (and probably other tooltip mods) does it is to use a :find pattern as opposed to a :match.

i.e.

Code:

local pattern = "^"..LEVEL -- LEVEL is a global variable and used in all localisations

if string.find(tooltipTextLine2, pattern) then doStuff() -- line two has level data
else doSometingElse() -- line two has guild data
end

Originally Posted by Aezay

I have a bonus question when it comes to code like this:

Code:

local _, _, _, _, _, value = SomeFunc();

How does the underscore work in Lua precisely? Does Lua know that underscores shouldn't be set, or does it just make one local variable in this block and set the first five parameters to it? Also, is this code good, or is it better done using select(6,SomeFunc())?

I don't know how Lua interprets the underscore, as most authors use it when a function returns variables they have no interest in. I think it can be used like other local variables, but it isn't something I've tried.

I myself prefer using underscores instead of select(). Use which one you prefer.

Slakah · 03-20-09, 06:49 AM

Originally Posted by Aezay

I have a bonus question when it comes to code like this:

Code:

local _, _, _, _, _, value = SomeFunc();

How does the underscore work in Lua precisely? Does Lua know that underscores shouldn't be set, or does it just make one local variable in this block and set the first five parameters to it? Also, is this code good, or is it better done using select(6,SomeFunc())?

People just use "_" as a dummy variable, and apparently assigning variables normally is better than select.

Dunno about your other question.

Aezay · 03-20-09, 07:35 AM

Thanks for the replies and comments on underscores.

Originally Posted by Ethan Centaurai

The way CowTip (and probably other tooltip mods) does it is to use a :find pattern as opposed to a :match.

find and match does the same really, but match doesn't return the string positions.
I used to use the LEVEL variable, but after getting reports that this wasn't matching the level text from tooltips on the german client, I started to use TOOLTIP_UNIT_LEVEL instead. But now I am told this doesn't match the lines on russian clients.

Couldn't all just use english clients, would make things so much simpler.