Ossuary

About

Ossuary is a random word parser. It is not a generator. In order for Ossuary to work properly, you have to supply it with either ad hoc lists or a JSON / JavaScript Object library.

Usage

Import Ossuary and instantiate it by passing an object or require if using Node.

const Ossuary = require('Ossuary');
const ossuary = new Ossuary(require('./myDictionary'));
ossuary.parse(...);

Syntax

Ad Hoc Lists

Ad hoc lists are easier to explain, so we'll start with those. When presented with a string to parse I have a pet {dog|cat}, parse will select either the string dog or cat with equal weight. Ad hoc lists can be extended indefinitely and can include numbers and letters.

Weight

You can also weight ad hoc lists (and regular lists) with ^n syntax where n is an integer when above 0 or a decimal below zero. An example of this would be the string I'd like to eat {pie^10|salad} where pie would occur 10 times more frequently than salad (it's not 10 times as likely as any given item because the number of items is arbitrary). In fact, this is the same as writing I'd like to eat {pie|salad^.1}.

Dictionary Lists

The data that is provided to Ossuary must be structured. Consider the following string I like [pets]. Parsing this string, Ossuary selects one unique item (this is implied as the selection set is 1) from the top-level accessor pets. The structure of the dictionary must have a top-level key with the signature pets: string[].

When parsing Something like I could really go for some [muffins|cereal]. Would then select one options from either muffins or cereal.

List Accessors

Data in dictionaries should be structure as a tree where each branch becomes more specific in nature. For example, a dicitonary could contain top-level animals which itself has mammals, birds, insects, etc. This allows for the use of nested list accessors i.e. The zoo has a [animals.mammals|animals.reptiles|plants].. This would return a mammal, a reptile, or any plant. Ossuary unwinds deeply-nested arrays into a single array, so each of these keys could have more categories before arriving at the required final signature of key: string[].

Unique Selection