How do I add a customized wait in my string?

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#1

i made a typewriting string system in my game, and i wanted to add a thing where i could manually add waits into the typewrite, for example:

"this is a{w5} string!"

the {w5} would wait 5 seconds, i know how to find it in the string, but i dont know how i would find it while making the wait amount customizable

(i also tried searching for a solution but i did not know how to phrase it since its so specific)

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#2

Seems like it would just be a simple lookahead.
How does your typewriting string system currently work. Is it just iterating over the characters in the string displaying each one after a set delay?

You could do something like:

local testString = "Testing Wait string{3} for funsies"
local exploded = testString:split("")
local curIndex = 1
local startChar = "{"
local endchar = "}"
local curWait = ""
while curIndex < #exploded do
	if exploded[curIndex] == startChar then
		while exploded[curIndex+1] ~= endchar do
			curIndex += 1
			curWait = curWait..exploded[curIndex]
		end
		task.wait(tonumber(curWait))
		curWait = ""
		curIndex += 1 -- skip endChar
	else
		print(exploded[curIndex])
		task.wait(.1)
	end
	curIndex += 1
end
#3

my system uses text.MaxVisibleGraphemes, so i’d need to store all the waits in a table beforehand

#4

Ah, so you probably would need to run over your raw strings with your wait tags in before hand and build up the clean text to put into your label and the table.

local testString = "Testing Wait string{3} for fun{5}sies. Because we can."
local cleanString = string.gsub(testString, "{(%d*)}", "")
local waits = {}
while string.find(testString, "{(%d*)}") do
	local waitTag = string.match(testString, "{(%d*)}")
	local index = string.find(testString, waitTag) - 2 -- back the index up to account for the "{"
	waits[index] = tonumber(waitTag)
	testString = string.gsub(testString, `\{{waitTag}\}`, "")
end

for i, c in ipairs(cleanString:split("")) do
	print(i, c)
	if waits[i] then
		task.wait(waits[i])
	else
		task.wait(.1)
	end
end
#5

how would i make it work with decimals?

1 Like
#6

You should be able to change that pattern it’s looking for to be like:

{(%d*%.?%d*)}

to match a numerical character, followed by 0 or 1 periods, followed by more numerical characters.

1 Like
#7

got it to work, thanks!!!