Question about ignoring partial Text Box Imput

[Lunar Tripsa]

Hello,

I'm trying to decide what direction to take with a project.  Ideally I'd like the user to type something into a text box, then have the script ignore everything but the first word.  I have no idea how to do that though since I won't know how many letters the first word will have.

 

Any help would be great, Thanks!

[Rolig Loon]

Look for the first space? 

integer idx = llSubStringIndex(message, " ");

string FirstWord = llGetSubString(message,0,idx);

[Lunar Tripsa]

ohhhhhh, thats much simpler then I thought it was gonna have to be!  thanks!

[Becka Aulder]

---

Rolig Loon wrote:

Look for the first space? 

integer idx = llSubStringIndex(message, " ");

string FirstWord = llGetSubString(message,0,idx);

---

One caveat about that bit of code.  If your user decdies for whatever reason (including accidently) adds 1 or more spaces at the beginning, that routine will fail.   The index of the first space will be zero so you will get a substring of  zero to zero....which is nothing.  You need to validate the entry if you have not already thought about it.

messge = llStringTrim(message, STRING_TRIM_HEAD);

//this will strip out all the white spaces at the beginning of the string

// then (and if you want to save a variable)

string firstWord = llGetSubString(message, 0, llSubstringIndex(message, " "));

 

 

 

[Jenny Siddeley]

Optionally you can also decrement idx if it's higher than 0, and if you want to remove the extra space at the end.

[Rolig Loon]

Well, if you want to start thinking about all of the things that can go wrong, you should also include the unwanted RETURN when someone hits a keyboard Enter instead of the Submit button.  See http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/LlTextBox#Examples .

When you start thinking of ways a user can mess up your ideal design, you can get a real headache.  :smileywink:

[Becka Aulder]

That is true enough.  I agree that trying to anticpate all the ways a user can mess things up is an exercize in insanity.  But we can try to anticpate the more obviouse ones -- the more common ones -- and take some proactive steps to take them into account. 

As in your exmaple I have found that a simple trimming on both ends of the users input  ( msg = llStringTrim(msg, STRING_TRIM); ) will take care of most things.   It will remove  the errant spaces at the beginning as well  will removing any extra spaces at end of the user input along with  the unwanted RETURN. 

In this case, I do think that my input was constructive rather than nitpicky.  Though in retrospect I should probably have done just a simple "trim all" in my example, but the original question was about securing just the first word with anything else on the line dropped onto the floor.  I try, though, to point to the tools at hand let people explore further if they are curious to know more. 

[Rolig Loon]

Your answer wasn't nitpicky at all.  It was sound advice.  It's hard to know how much detail to offer in response to a question here.  Sometimes the bare minimum is just what the OP needs, but it never hurts to offer more.  Since you opened the door, I added my flippant reply about all the other things that the OP might consider to encourage him to keep thinking of other things that might go wrong.