Chat Command

Parse and execute commands from text in a flexible and configurable way. This is intended to be consumed by anything that might want to run arbitrary commands (and provide output) based on text.

(currently) only intended for use in a Node environment.

• Setup
• Examples

Setup

npm install -S chat-command

/**
 * The default export is a higher order function  that should be
 * called with (namespace<string>, actions<object>, overrides<object?>)
 * This will return a function that executes commands from text
 * based on the initialization parameters
 */
const chatCommand = require('chat-command')('bot', {
  hello: 'hello',
  goodbye: () => 'goodbye'
})
 
chatCommand('bot.hello bot.goodbye')
// ['hello', 'goodbye']

Examples

Call actions with arguments

const chatCommandFactory = require('chat-command')
 
const customMathParser = chatCommandFactory('math', {
  abs (a) {
    return Math.abs(Number(a))
  },
  add (a, b) {
    return Number(a) + Number(b)
  },
})
 
customMathParser(`
  I'm too tired to do math
  math.add(1,2)
  math.abs(-10)
`)
// [3, 10]
 
// You can even use native objects if you're especially adventurous
const nativeMathParser = chatCommandFactory('Math', Math)
 
nativeMathParser(`
  Math.min(1,2)
  Math.max(1,2)
  Math.abs(-10)
  Math.PI
`)
// [1, 2, 10, 3.141592653589793]

Nest actions to create logical command structures

const players = []
const chatCommand = require('chat-command')('game', {
  players: {
    add (name) {
      players.push(name)
      return `Added ${name}`
    }
  },
  fight () {
    return `${players.join(' and ')} are fighting!`
  }
})
 
chatCommand(`
  game.players.add(Bob)
  game.players.add(Bill)
  game.fight
`)
// ['Added Bob', 'Added Bill', 'Bob and Bill are fighting!']

Handle asynchronous actions

const Database = require('...')
const chatCommand = require('chat-command')('db', {
  todos: {
    add (todo) {
      return new Promise((resolve) => {
        Database.insert(todo, () => {
          resolve('Added: ${todo}')
        })
      })
    }
  }
})
 
Promise.all(chatCommand('db.todos.add(Buy Groceries)'))
  .then(results => {
    results
    // ['Added: Buy Groceries']
  })

Override default parsing behavior and/or exclude namespace

const chatCommandFactory = require('chat-command')
 
const tildeCommand = ('', {
  i: { love: { tildes: 'Me too!' } },
  andAmpersands (a, b, c) {
    return a + b + c
  }
}, {
  delimiter: '~', // default: '.'
  argumentDelimiter: '&' // default: /, ?/
})
 
tildeCommand('i~love~tildes andAmpersands(a&b&c)')
// ['Me too!', 'abc']
 
const slashCommand = chatCommandFactory('/', {
  help () {
    return 'I can try...'
  }
}, {
  includeLeadingDelimiter: false
})
 
slashCommand('/help')
// ['I can try...']

The logic is composed of helpers parse and execute which may also be accessed separately for more granular control

const { parse, execute } = require('chat-command')('bot', {
  doThis: 'ok',
  dontDoThis: () => { throw Error('Bad') }
})
 
parse('bot.doThis bot.dontDoThis')
  .filter(command => command !== 'dontDoThis')
  .map(execute)
// ['ok']
 
execute('doThis')
// 'ok'