Ok, I have implemented a little random text/poem/haiku generator. I bumped into Julie Zelenski's webpage when I was searching for some perl poetry material. I had a look at the grammar, thought it was fun, and easy to parse. So I implemented a perl version of the grammar parser and random text/poem generator. It was pretty fun to play with, especially with a Star Trek episode generator (yeah you can tell I am a big star trek fan ;-)). Here it goes...

#!/usr/local/bin/perl -w
use strict;
use Data::Dumper;

=pod

#
# ok, the following is the location of the grammar files at
# Julie Zelenski's webpage at stanford's computer science faculty.
# I was thinking about using WWW::Mechanize or LWP::Agent to
# fetch the grammar files, but couldn't be bothered.
#
my $rsg_grammar_url
  = "http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~zelenski/rsg/grammars/";

=cut

# load the grammar definition file
my $grammar = do { local $/; <DATA> };

my %grammar = %{parse_grammar($grammar)};
# print Dumper(\%grammar);

my $text = random_text_from_grammar("start");
$text =~ s/(.{50,60}(?<=\s\b))/$1\n/mg;
print "$text\n";

# parse the simple grammar and build a hash table
sub parse_grammar
{
    my $grammar = shift;
    my %grammar = $grammar =~ /^{\s*<([^>]+)>\s*([^}]+)}/mg;

    foreach (keys %grammar) {
        $grammar{$_} = [ map { s/[^\S\n]+/ /g;
                               s/\s([.?,;!])/$1/g;
                               $_ }
                         split /\s*;\s*/, $grammar{$_} ];
    }

    return \%grammar;
}

# generate the text recursively
sub random_text_from_grammar
{
    my $token = shift;
    my $selection = $grammar{$token};
    my $phrase = $selection->[rand ($#$selection+1)];
    $phrase =~ s/<([^>]+)>/random_text_from_grammar($1)/ge;
    return $phrase;
}

__DATA__

[download]
The haiku grammar.
by Garret B. Kaminaga
scorpio@leland.Stanford.EDU

{
<start> 
<5-line> /  <7-line> / <5-line> - <OrientalName>    ;
}

{
<5-line> 
<1> <4>    ;
<1> <3> <1>    ;
<1> <1> <3>    ;
<1> <2> <2>    ;
<1> <2> <1> <1>    ;
<1> <1> <2> <1>    ;
<1> <1> <1> <2>    ;
<1> <1> <1> <1> <1>    ;
<2> <3>    ;
<2> <2> <1>    ;
<2> <1> <2>    ;
<2> <1> <1> <1>    ;
<3> <2>    ;
<3> <1> <1>    ;
<4> <1>    ;
<5>    ;
}

{
<7-line>
<1> <1> <5-line>    ;
<2> <5-line>    ;
<5-line> <1> <1>    ;
<5-line> <2>    ;
}

{
<OrientalName> 
Basho    ;
Hokusai    ;
Makimoto    ;
Toshiba    ;
Matsushida    ;
Yamaha    ;
}

{
<1> 
red    ;
white    ;
black    ;
sky    ;
dawns    ;
breaks    ;
falls    ;
leaf    ;
rain    ;
pool    ;
my    ;
your    ;
sun    ;
clouds    ;
blue    ;
green    ;
night    ;
day    ;
dawn    ;
dusk    ;
birds    ;
fly    ;
grass    ;
tree    ;
branch    ;
through    ;
hell    ;
Ada    ;
Nick    ;
smile    ;
grey    ;
wave    ;
sea    ;
to    ;
through    ;
in    ;
no    ;
sound    ;
mind    ;
smoke    ;
cranes    ;
Zen    ;
}

{
<2> 
drifting    ;
purple    ;
mountains    ;
skyline    ;
city    ;
subway    ;
faces    ;
empty    ;
Buddhist    ;
temple    ;
Japan    ;
ocean    ;
thinking    ;
zooming    ;
rushing    ;
over    ;
rice fields    ;
rising    ;
falling    ;
hard disk    ;
sushi    ;
sparkling    ;
Tokyo    ;
Kyushu    ;
Kyoto    ;
}

{
<3> 
Parlante    ;
sunrises    ;
peasant farms    ;
computer    ;
sashimi    ;
juniper    ;
fishing boats    ;
far away    ;
ethernet    ;
Mac IP    ;
kimonos    ;
samurai    ;
}

{
<4> 
CD Player    ;
Aluminum    ;
yakitori    ;
Mitsukoshi    ;
pampas grass    ;
chrysanthemums    ;
cherry blossoms    ;
}

{
<5> 
resolutional    ;
non-elemental    ;
rolling foothills rise    ;
toward mountains higher    ;
}

[download]
When I ran it, I got some pretty interesting text -
Kyoto smile Nick through / day Kyoto drifting subway /
temple my ocean - Hokusai

rising computer / dusk Mitsukoshi day Nick / hell samurai
tree - Toshiba

wave white Tokyo wave / toward mountains higher empty /
computer faces - Hokusai

Mitsukoshi pool / sushi wave dusk Parlante / white subway
sound birds - Toshiba

Buddhist cranes cranes fly / Kyushu sun rice fields sea
through / temple white thinking - Basho

[download]

In reply to Re: Seeking Perl poetry code that writes poems by Roger
in thread Seeking Perl poetry code that writes poems by Anonymous Monk

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