Running a function from within dialogue

[arti]

Hello, sorry if this has been asked or is obvious, but I couldn't find anything.

Is there a way to run a function within dialogue like there is to use a variable?
If I want a variable it's as simple as:

Code: Select all

e "This will display a [variable]!"

But trying something similar for a function doesn't work:

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e "It's [a_or_an(unknown_string)] [unknown_string].

Appreciate any help

[enaielei]

Ren'Py's way of interpolation really has its flaws.
You can try a workaround using renpy.say which is a pythonic equivalent of a say statement.

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$ renpy.say(e, "It's {} [unknown_string]".format(a_or_an(unknown_string)))
# or for the latest version of Ren'Py, using  f strings
$ renpy.say(e, f"It's {a_or_an(unknown_string)} [unknown_string]")

Or maybe even using custom text tags.

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init python:
  def ev_tag(tag, argument):
    return [(renpy.TEXT_TEXT, renpy.eval(argument))]

  config.self_closing_custom_text_tags["ev"] = ev_tag

label start:
  e "It's {ev=a_or_an(unknown_string)} [unknown_string]."

This works as long as your a_or_an or other function returns a string.

[m_from_space]

It's really simple:

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$ w = a_or_an(unknown_string)
e "It's [w] [unknown_string]."

On the other hand your function could return the combination of "a" or "an" and the word.

[arti]

Thanks enaielei. Something like those solutions looks like what I'm after. I couldn't quite get them to work, but I'm not the best programmer and will keep trying.

And thank you too m_from_space. That's the solution I was going with when I decided to ask here. It does work, but it's kind of clunky and not ideal doing very often. I was worried about how it would work with saves and rollback as well.
You're right about combining the two, I just separated them here to try and give a clearer example of what I was trying to do.