pupate

scripting.md

  1---
  2title: Scripting
  3---
  4
  5A puzzle-generating script must write a puzzle to stdout,
  6as described in [Puzzle Format](puzzle.md).
  7
  8Scripts can also generate attachments by writing the attachment to the current working directory.
  9
 10Naming Your Script
 11==========
 12
 13Your script should be named `mkpuzzle.*`,
 14with an extension corresponding to the language you're using.
 15
 16Currently (August 2024),
 17Windows supports:
 18
 19* `mkpuzzle.py` (Python 3)
 20* `mkpuzzle.sh` (Bash)
 21
 22
 23Random Seed
 24===========
 25
 26The MOTH convention is to provide a random seed
 27in the environment variable `SEED`.
 28Your program should be prepared for `SEED` to be any string,
 29not necessarily an integer.
 30
 31
 32Working With Other Files
 33================
 34
 35When a script is run,
 36the working directory will be set to wherever files should be written.
 37
 38Attachments
 39----------
 40
 41Attachments can be created by simply writing to the attachment filename:
 42
 43```sh
 44echo foo > attachment.txt
 45```
 46
 47Source Files
 48---------
 49
 50Most source files should be relative to the directory of the script.
 51
 52Most scripting languages are able to determine
 53the directory containing the script being executed.
 54Here are two examples:
 55
 56### Bourne Shell
 57```sh
 58srcdir=$(dirname $0)
 59read answer < $srcdir/answer.txt
 60```
 61
 62### Python
 63```python
 64import os
 65import sys
 66
 67srcdir = os.path.dirname(sys.argv[0])
 68answer = open(os.path.join(srcdir, "answer.txt")).read()
 69```
 70
 71### Environment Variable
 72
 73As a fallback option,
 74the environment variable `srcdir`
 75contains the absolute path to the script directory.
 76
 77
 78Example (Bourne Shell)
 79==========
 80
 81```sh
 82#!/bin/sh
 83
 84srcdir=$(dirname $0)
 85read answer < $srcdir/answer.txt
 86encoded=$(echo $answer | tr 'a-z' 'n-za-m')
 87
 88echo $encoded > encoded.txt
 89
 90cat <<EOF
 91---
 92title: Example Scripted Puzzle
 93answers:
 94  - $answer
 95attachments:
 96  - encoded.txt
 97---
 98
 99rot-13 decode this:
100
101    $encoded
102EOF
103```
104