comment on

With no offence intended to ELISHEVA, I had some fun with this and here is some code. You can look at it later if you want to try yourself first. It may be most helpful as an example of how not to do it. There is no attempt to minimize nesting of tags. You will have to play with CSS to get the effects you want.

update: revised, with thanks to ELISHEVA for guidance, and with tests added (which I should have done in the first place). There may still be bugs, as the test cases aren't exhaustive, but it's less buggy than it was.

#! /usr/local/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;

#  $i: italic
#  $s: shadowed
#  $w: wide spacing
#  $n: narrow spacing
#  $m: normal setting
#  $g: default color
#  $t: changes the text to capitals
#  $z: reset all
#  $$: to write a "$"

my %classes = (
    i   => 'italics',
    s   => 'shadowed',
    w   => 'wide',
    n   => 'narrow',
    m   => 'normal',
);

my %testcases = (
    '$iMy$z$w$f00Nickname' => '<span class="italics">My</span><span cl
+ass="wide"><font color="ff0000">Nickname</font></span>',
    '$s$5aaD$ddfia$5aaD$ddfe$5cc§' => '<span class="shadowed"><font co
+lor="55aaaa">D<font color="ddddff">ia<font color="55aaaa">D<font colo
+r="ddddff">e<font color="55cccc">§</font></font></font></font></font>
+</span>',
    '$iT$sh$wi$ns is $m$444silly$z $tsmall stuff$z and BIG STUFF' => '
+<span class="italics">T<span class="shadowed">h<span class="wide">i<s
+pan class="narrow">s is <span class="normal"><font color="444444">sil
+ly</font></span></span></span></span></span> SMALL STUFF and BIG STUF
+F',
    '$wWIDE$nNARROW$mnormal' => '<span class="wide">WIDE<span class="n
+arrow">NARROW<span class="normal">normal</span></span></span>',
    '$ta$$zas$zdf' => 'A$ZASdf',
    '$tasdf' => 'ASDF',

);

foreach ( keys %testcases ) {
    my $string = $_;
    my @tags;
    while ( $string =~ m/(\$[iswnmgtz\$]|\$[0-9a-f]{3,3})/ig ) {
        my $pos = pos($string);
        my $taglen = 2;
        my $replacement = "";

        my $c = lc(substr($1,1,1));
        if(my $class = $classes{$c}) {
            $replacement = "<span class=\"$class\">";
            unshift(@tags, '</span>');
        } elsif($c eq 'g') {
            $replacement = '<font color="#000000">';
            unshift(@tags, '</font>');
        } elsif($c eq 't') {
            my $length = length($string) - $pos;
            while ( $string =~ m/(\$[iswnmgtz\$]|\$[0-9a-f]{3,3})/ig )
+ {
                if(lc($1) eq '$z') {
                    $length = pos($string) - $pos - 2;
                    last;
                }
            }
            substr($string, $pos, $length, uc( substr($string, $pos, $
+length) ) );
        } elsif($c eq 'z') {
            local $" = "";
            $replacement = "@tags";
            @tags = ();
        } elsif($c eq '$') {
            $replacement = '$';
        } else {
            $taglen = 4;
            my ($x, $r, $g, $b) = split(//,$1);
            $replacement = "<font color=\"$r$r$g$g$b$b\">";
            unshift(@tags, '</font>');
        }

        substr($string, $pos - $taglen, $taglen, $replacement);
        pos($string) = $pos - $taglen + length($replacement);
    }
    { local $" = ""; $string .= "@tags"; }

    if($string eq $testcases{$_}) {
        print "Ok '$_' =>\n '$string'\n";
    } else {
        print "Not Ok '$_' =>\n '$string'  expecting:\n '$testcases{$_
+}'\n";
    }
}
[download]

Following is the original buggy version.

#! /usr/local/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;

#  $i: italic
#  $s: shadowed
#  $w: wide spacing
#  $n: narrow spacing
#  $m: normal setting
#  $g: default color
#  $t: changes the text to capitals
#  $z: reset all
#  $$: to write a "$"

my %classes = (
    i   => 'italics',
    s   => 'shadowed',
    w   => 'wide',
    n   => 'narrow',
    m   => 'normal',
);

foreach (
    '$iMy$z$w$f00Nickname',
    '$s$5aaD$ddfia$5aaD$ddfe$5cc§',
    '$iT$sh$wi$ns is $m$444silly$z $tsmall stuff$z and BIG STUFF',
    '$wWIDE$nNARROW$mnormal',
) {
    my $string = $_;
    my @tags;
    while ( $string =~ m/(\$[iswnmgtz\$]|\$[0-9a-f]{3,3})/ig ) {
        my $c = lc(substr($1,1,1));
        if(my $class = $classes{$c}) {
            substr($string,pos($string) - 2, 2, "<span class=\"$class\
+">");
            push(@tags, '</span>');
        } elsif($c eq 'g') {
            substr($string,pos($string) - 2, 2, '<font color="#000000"
+>');
            push(@tags, '</font>');
        } elsif($c eq 't') {
            my $end = index($string, '$z', pos($string));
            $end = length($string) if($end == -1);
            substr($string,pos($string)-2 ,$end - pos($string) +2, uc(
+substr($string,pos($string), $end - pos($string))));
        } elsif($c eq 'z') {
            { local $" = ""; substr($string,pos($string) - 2, 2, "@tag
+s"); }
            @tags = ();
        } elsif($c eq '$') {
            substr($string,pos($string) - 2, 2, '$');
        } else {
            my ($x, $r, $g, $b) = split(//,$1);
            substr($string,pos($string) - 4, 4, "<font color=\"$r$r$g$
+g$b$b\">");
            push(@tags, '</font>');
        }
    }
    { local $" = ""; $string .= "@tags"; }

    print "$string\n";
}
[download]

CSS something like the following may be a start:

<style type="text/css">
<!--
SPAN.italics    { font-style: italic; }
SPAN.shadowed   {
    background-color: #666;
    color: inherit;
}
SPAN.wide       { font-stretch: wider; }
SPAN.narrow     { font-stretch: narrower; }
SPAN.normal     { font-stretch: normal; }
-->
</style>
[download]

It creates results like the following:

<span class="italics">My</span><span class="wide"><font color="ff0000"
+>Nickname</span></font>
<span class="shadowed"><font color="55aaaa">D<font color="ddddff">ia<f
+ont color="55aaaa">D<font color="ddddff">e<font color="55cccc">§</spa
+n></font></font></font></font></font>
<span class="italics">T<span class="shadowed">h<span class="wide">i<sp
+an class="narrow">s is <span class="normal"><font color="444444">sill
+y</span></span></span></span></span></font> SMALL STUFF and BIG STUFF
<span class="wide">WIDE<span class="narrow">NARROW<span class="normal"
+>normal</span></span></span>
[download]

In reply to Re: Game Nicknames to HTML by ig
in thread Game Nicknames to HTML by baltic.sailor

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