words

words is a hugolib.h-defined global variable. Set each turn by the engine, it holds the total number of words used in the player input and is invaluable when writing parser-helping code. How it works:

1. Words like “the”, “a”, and “an” are ignored.

2. Words like “then” and certain punctuation (like full stops) are saved as word “”. In the command:

   >GET FIRECRACKER THEN LIGHT IT

   words would be set to 5, but “THEN” would be saved as “” (this is how Hugo separates stringed commands).

3. words is set to the total number of valid dictionary words and ““‘s.

words in action

Here is an example script of a game that prints the value of words each turn:

>look. x me. listen to me.

Start Location
words = 9

Looking good.
words = 7

You are not making a sound.
words = 4

Notice how words is decremented as the game processes each part of the multi-command input.

Using words to find the end of the command

Considering that words is takes the whole input into account, one must be careful to not write code that assumes words equals the number of words in the current command. To find the length of just the current command, one could do something like this:

local a
for (a=1; a < words ; a++)
{
    if word[(a+1)] = ""
        break
}

Now, a will equal the number of words in the first command.

changing words

When deleting or adding words to the word array during PreParse, it is important to also update words to match the new total. This is why it is recommended to use utility routines like InsertWord or DeleteWord for word array modification, as they update word for you.