Get random wiki article title.

This code has been declared by its author to be Public Domain code.

Get random wiki article title. by sting

2011

In exploring an idea for Ludum Dare, I ended up creating a way to retrieve a random Wikipedia article title.

It uses an array to hold strings and flags, though it is only for example purposes and can be easily changed to types or what have you.

Code is mostly commented and an example is included (can you tell I like "Color"?) :P

Graphics 500,180,24,2

                                        ; / Globals
Global NumTopics = 9,NumFlags = 3       ;| Flags: 1 = Disambiguation, 2 = Length Over 20, 3 = Total Length      Read as Int(Topic$(i,?))
Dim Topic$(NumTopics,NumFlags)          ;|
For i = 0 To NumTopics                  ;| Initialize array. 
	Topic$(i,0) = ""                ;|
	Topic$(i,1) = 0                 ;|
	Topic$(i,2) = 0                 ;|
	Topic$(i,3) = 0                 ;|
Next                                    ;|



;######################### EXAMPLE #########################
.start
Cls : Locate 0,5
Color 105,105,105 : Print " Acquiring 3 Random Redirects..." : Color 155,15,15
RND_Topic(0) : Print " 1" : Locate 20,18
RND_Topic(1) : Print "2"  : Locate 32,18
RND_Topic(2) : Print "3"  
Color 255,255,255 : Print " -------------------------------"
For i = 0 To 2
	Color 92,187,233
	Print " "+Topic$(i,0)
	Color 105,105,105
	Print " Flags (( Dis="+Int(Topic$(i,1))+"  20+="+Int(Topic$(i,2))+"  Length="+Int(Topic$(i,3))+" ))"
Next
Color 255,255,255 : Print " -------------------------------"
Color 155,155,155 : Print " Space = new   Esc = Exit" ; Or any other...
FlushKeys 
WaitKey
For i = 0 To NumTopics               
	Topic$(i,0) = ""                    
	Topic$(i,1) = 0                     
	Topic$(i,2) = 0                     
	Topic$(i,3) = 0                     
Next
If KeyHit(57) Then Goto start
End
;###########################################################




Function RND_Topic(L_var=0)
tcp=OpenTCPStream( "www.wikipedia.org",80 )
	If Not tcp Then Topic$(L_var,0) = "Null" : Return 
	WriteLine tcp,"GET /wiki/Special"+Chr$(58)+"Random HTTP/1.1"
	WriteLine tcp,"Host: en.wikipedia.org"
	WriteLine tcp,"User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2) Gecko/20100115 Firefox/3.6 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729)"
	WriteLine tcp,Chr$(10)
	If Eof(tcp) Then Topic$(L_var,0) = "Null" : Return 
	While Not Eof(tcp)
	L_man$ = ReadLine$(tcp) : L_length = Len(L_man$)                                             ; / Header processing
	If Left$(L_man$,5) = "Locat" Then                                                            ;| Detect the line with the info we want.
		L_man$ = Mid$(L_man$,40,L_length)                                                    ;| Trim URL amd clean it up.
		For i = 1 To Len(L_man$)                                                             ;|
			If Mid$(L_man$,i,1) = "%" Then                                               ;| Detect and convert URL Escape Codes to normal ASCII.
				L_rpvr$ = Mid$(L_man$,i,3) : L_rpv$ = Chr$(h2d(Mid$(L_man$,i+1,2)))  ;|
				L_man$ = Replace$(L_man$,L_rpvr$,L_rpv$)                             ;|
			EndIf                                                                        ;|
		Next                                                                                 ;|
		L_man$ = Replace$(L_man$,"_"," ")                                                    ;| replace underscores.

		                                                              ; / Flag processing
									      ;|------------------
		If Right$(L_man$,16) = "(disambiguation)" Then                ;| Detects if "(disambiguation)" is in the title.
			Topic$(L_var,1) = 1                                   ;| Sets the flag that it was there and removes string part.
			L_man$ = Replace$(L_man$,"(disambiguation)","")       ;|
		EndIf                                                         ;|------------------
		If Len(L_man$) > 20 Then                                      ;| Detects if length is over 20 chars.
			Topic$(L_var,2) = 1                                   ;|
		EndIf                                                         ;|------------------
		Topic$(L_var,3) = Len(L_man$)                                 ;| Record length
		
		L_Topic$ = L_man$                                             ;| Make sure it wont be overwritten.
	EndIf 
	Wend
	
	If Eof(tcp)=1 Then Topic$(L_var,0) = L_Topic$                         ;| Change "Topic$(L_var,0)" to some global if you just want the string.
CloseTCPStream tcp
FlushKeys : Return
End Function 

Function h2d(L_in$)
	Local L_c, L_dec, L_val$ = "0123456789ABCDEF"                              ; / Credit Yan
	For L_c=1 To Len(L_in$)                                                    ;|
		L_dec = (L_dec Shl 4)Or(Instr(L_val$,Upper$(Mid$(L_in$,L_c,1)))-1) ;|
	Next                                                                       ;|
	Return L_dec                                                               ;|
End Function

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