Factoids

Factoids are one of the most important Ibid plugins. They are what give a bot most of its personality, and after a few years on IRC, it can expect to pick up a few thousand of them from its users.

While it can store simple factoids like:

<Alice> Ibid is an awesome bot written in Python
<ibid> If you say so
<Alice> Ibid
<ibid> Ibid is an awesome bot written in Python

It can also allow for some basic behaviour programming:

<Alice> slap $arg is <action>slaps $1 and runs for his life
<ibid> Got it
<Alice> slap Bob
* ibid slaps Bob and runs for his life

Basics

Factoids start out pretty basic, as a way of the bot remembering things, such as:

<Alice> ibid: Ibid is an awesome bot framework
<ibid> Alice: One learns a new thing every day

Now I can ask him about that:

<Alice> ibid: what is ibid?
<ibid> Alice: Ibid is an awesome bot framework

Or even:

<Alice> ibid: Ibid
<ibid> Alice: Ibid is an awesome bot framework

They can also store multiple values. On retrieval, a value is picked at random:

<Alice> ibid: Ibid is also your father
<ibid> Alice: I'll remember that
<Alice> ibid: Ibid
<ibid> Alice: ibid is your father
<Alice> ibid: Ibid
<ibid> Alice: ibid is an awesome bot framework

You can request a specific one:

<Alice> ibid: Ibid /frame/
<ibid> Alice: ibid is an awesome bot framework
<Alice> ibid: literal ibid
<ibid> Alice: 1: is an awesome bot framework, 2: is your father
<Alice> ibid: Ibid #2
<ibid> Alice: ibid is your father

Fancy factoids

Factoids don’t just have to be like a dictionary, they can have some basic behaviour attached. This example also shows how you can trivially replace factoids (assuming you have permission to do so):

<Alice> ibid: hi is <reply>Hi there
<ibid> Alice: One learns a new thing every day
<Alice> ibid: hi
<ibid> Hi there
<Alice> ibid: no, hi is <action>waves
<ibid> Alice: Got it
<Alice> ibid: hi
 * ibid waves
<Alice> ibid: no, hi is <reply>Hello $who
<ibid> Alice: If you say so
<Alice> ibid: hi
<ibid> Hello Alice

The $who substitutes the speaker’s name. Other substitutions possible are:

• $channel, $source
• $year, $month, $mon, $month1, $month2, $day, $day2, $hour, $minute, $second, $date, $time, $weekday, $unixtime

$month, $mon, $month1 and $month2 substitute, respectively, the month name, abbreviated month name, month number and zero-padded month number; $day2 substitutes the zero-padded day number.

And factoids can have multiple names. Our greeting only responds to “hi”, it should respond to more greetings:

<Alice> ibid: hello is the same as hi
<ibid> Alice: Yessir
<Alice> ibid: good day is the same as hi
<ibid> Alice: Alrighty
<Alice> ibid: good day
<ibid> Hello Alice

Finally, factoids can take basic arguments:

<Alice> ibid: slap $arg is <action>slaps $1
<ibid> Alice: Got it
<Alice> ibid: slap Alice
 * ibid slaps Alice
<Alice> ibid: run from $arg to $arg is <action>starts running at $1 and stops at $2
<ibid> Alice: One learns a new thing every day
<Alice> ibid: run from here to there
 * ibid starts running at here and stops at there

Searching

Factoids aren’t very useful if we can’t remember what they are called:

<Alice> ibid: search slap
<ibid> Alice: slap $arg [1]
<Alice> ibid: search father
<ibid> Alice: Ibid [2]

The first example tells us about a factoid mentioning slap. The second shows what happens when a multi-valued factoid is found. The result we are after may be one of two values, so we can’t simply say “ibid: ibid”, we should rather use say:

<Alice> ibid: ibid /father/
<ibid> Alice: Ibid is your father

You can specify which part of the factoid you are searching in:

<Alice> ibid: search for values containing awesome
<ibid> Alice: Ibid [2]
<Alice> ibid: search for names containing awesome
<ibid> Alice: I couldn't find anything with that name

Modification

Factoids aren’t set in stone. While they can be replaced with “no, name is newvalue”, sometimes you just want to make a small change:

<Alice> ibid: ibid
<ibid> Alice: Ibid is an awesome bot framework
<Alice> ibid: ibid += , written in python
<ibid> Alice: Pattern matches multiple factoids, please be more specific
<Alice> ibid: ibid /awesome/ += , written in python
<ibid> Alice: Done
<Alice> ibid: ibid /awesome/
<ibid> Alice: Ibid is an awesome bot framework, written in python
<Alice> ibid: ibid /python/ ~= s/awesome //
<ibid> Alice: Yessir
<Alice> ibid: ibid /python/
<ibid> Alice: Ibid is an bot framework, written in python

Note

The replacement is a simple search & replace. If you want to use a regular expression, you must add an r flag. E.g. s/fo+/bar/r

The i and g flags are also supported, as is the y/x/y/ operation.

And finally, removal:

<Alice> ibid: forget ibid
<ibid> Alice: Sure
<Alice> ibid: ibid
<ibid> Alice: What?

Or only one of the values:

<Alice> ibid: literal ibid
<ibid> Alice: 0: is your father, 1: is an awesome bot framework
<Alice> ibid: forget ibid /framework/
<ibid> Alice: Sure
<Alice> ibid: literal ibid
<ibid> Alice: 0: is your father