From: Chuft Captain <chuft@...>
Date: 2009-04-09T13:05:00+09:00
Subject: A hopefully simple question

Hello,

I downloaded an irc bot written in Ruby. I haven't programmed in many
years but couldn't resist the urge to tinker with the code so I peeked
inside.

Basically I am trying to add additional string recognition statements to
this bot, so it says things in response to things people say in the
channel.

For example the code contains this statement:

      elsif msg.text == "lol"
        reply(msg, " LOLOLOLOL")

This works fine.  However I would like to have it respond if the
statement being evaluated has "lol" anywhere in it, not just if it is
exactly "lol".  In other words, I want to search their string, which
appears to be in the variable msg.text, to see if it contains "lol".  In
the past, I have found this to be a simple matter in other languages.

I have been unable to find out how to do this in Ruby.  If I try this:

      elsif msg.text.include? "lol"
        reply(msg, " LOLOLOLOL")

the bot either does not run at all, or else quits immediately. Similar
instant failure occurs when I try

      elsif msg.text.include?("lol")
        reply(msg, " LOLOLOLOL")

or

     elsif msg.text =~ "lol"
        reply(msg, " LOLOLOLOL")


Is there a simple way to accomplish this task by replacing the ==
comparison operator with something else that searches a string variable
for a substring?

Thanks
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