How is the do ... end loop in slack-ruby-bot sample code structured?

Question

I'm very new to ruby. I want to build a slack bot in ruby using slack-ruby-bot. In their tutorial, they have the following code:

require 'slack-ruby-bot'

class PongBot < SlackRubyBot::Bot
  command 'ping' do |client, data, match|
    client.say(text: 'pong', channel: data.channel)
  end
end

PongBot.run

My question is as follows:

What does the command do? Is it a function that takes in 'ping'? Why isn't there a def for in-class methods just like in other languages?
This might be something I can write on my own once I understand this sample code, but what should I write if I want to extract urls from commands users type into a channel?

Thanks,

Amadan · Accepted Answer · 2016-10-27T07:30:38.913

command is a class method of SlackRubyBot::Commands::Base, which PongBot gets by inheritance through SlackRubyBot::Bot. As a class method, it can be invoked in the class context. So yes, it is a method that takes 'ping' as an argument.

You can use def to define methods, of course. command does not actually define any methods. What it does is it creates a regular expression to match your command and enters it (and the accompanying code block) into a data structure against which traffic will be filtered later.

If you want to match arbitrary regular expressions in arbitrary text in channel, follow the section on generic routing, using the match method (for single match) or scan method (for all matches). Something like this (untested):

class URLBot < SlackRubyBot::Bot
  # adapted from http://stackoverflow.com/a/190405/240443
  URL_RE = /([a-z](?:[-a-z0-9\+\.])*:(?:\/\/(?:(?:%[0-9a-f][0-9a-f]|[-a-z0-9\._~\u{A0}-\u{D7FF}\u{F900}-\u{FDCF}\u{FDF0}-\u{FFEF}\u{10000}-\u{1FFFD}\u{20000}-\u{2FFFD}\u{30000}-\u{3FFFD}\u{40000}-\u{4FFFD}\u{50000}-\u{5FFFD}\u{60000}-\u{6FFFD}\u{70000}-\u{7FFFD}\u{80000}-\u{8FFFD}\u{90000}-\u{9FFFD}\u{A0000}-\u{AFFFD}\u{B0000}-\u{BFFFD}\u{C0000}-\u{CFFFD}\u{D0000}-\u{DFFFD}\u{E1000}-\u{EFFFD}!\$&'\(\)\*\+,;=:])*@)?(?:\[(?:(?:(?:[0-9a-f]{1,4}:){6}(?:[0-9a-f]{1,4}:[0-9a-f]{1,4}|(?:[0-9]|[1-9][0-9]|1[0-9][0-9]|2[0-4][0-9]|25[0-5])(?:\.(?:[0-9]|[1-9][0-9]|1[0-9][0-9]|2[0-4][0-9]|25[0-5])){3})|::(?:[0-9a-f]{1,4}:){5}(?:[0-9a-f]{1,4}:[0-9a-f]{1,4}|(?:[0-9]|[1-9][0-9]|1[0-9][0-9]|2[0-4][0-9]|25[0-5])(?:\.(?:[0-9]|[1-9][0-9]|1[0-9][0-9]|2[0-4][0-9]|25[0-5])){3})|(?:[0-9a-f]{1,4})?::(?:[0-9a-f]{1,4}:){4}(?:[0-9a-f]{1,4}:[0-9a-f]{1,4}|(?:[0-9]|[1-9][0-9]|1[0-9][0-9]|2[0-4][0-9]|25[0-5])(?:\.(?:[0-9]|[1-9][0-9]|1[0-9][0-9]|2[0-4][0-9]|25[0-5])){3})|(?:[0-9a-f]{1,4}:[0-9a-f]{1,4})?::(?:[0-9a-f]{1,4}:){3}(?:[0-9a-f]{1,4}:[0-9a-f]{1,4}|(?:[0-9]|[1-9][0-9]|1[0-9][0-9]|2[0-4][0-9]|25[0-5])(?:\.(?:[0-9]|[1-9][0-9]|1[0-9][0-9]|2[0-4][0-9]|25[0-5])){3})|(?:(?:[0-9a-f]{1,4}:){0,2}[0-9a-f]{1,4})?::(?:[0-9a-f]{1,4}:){2}(?:[0-9a-f]{1,4}:[0-9a-f]{1,4}|(?:[0-9]|[1-9][0-9]|1[0-9][0-9]|2[0-4][0-9]|25[0-5])(?:\.(?:[0-9]|[1-9][0-9]|1[0-9][0-9]|2[0-4][0-9]|25[0-5])){3})|(?:(?:[0-9a-f]{1,4}:){0,3}[0-9a-f]{1,4})?::[0-9a-f]{1,4}:(?:[0-9a-f]{1,4}:[0-9a-f]{1,4}|(?:[0-9]|[1-9][0-9]|1[0-9][0-9]|2[0-4][0-9]|25[0-5])(?:\.(?:[0-9]|[1-9][0-9]|1[0-9][0-9]|2[0-4][0-9]|25[0-5])){3})|(?:(?:[0-9a-f]{1,4}:){0,4}[0-9a-f]{1,4})?::(?:[0-9a-f]{1,4}:[0-9a-f]{1,4}|(?:[0-9]|[1-9][0-9]|1[0-9][0-9]|2[0-4][0-9]|25[0-5])(?:\.(?:[0-9]|[1-9][0-9]|1[0-9][0-9]|2[0-4][0-9]|25[0-5])){3})|(?:(?:[0-9a-f]{1,4}:){0,5}[0-9a-f]{1,4})?::[0-9a-f]{1,4}|(?:(?:[0-9a-f]{1,4}:){0,6}[0-9a-f]{1,4})?::)|v[0-9a-f]+[-a-z0-9\._~!\$&'\(\)\*\+,;=:]+)\]|(?:[0-9]|[1-9][0-9]|1[0-9][0-9]|2[0-4][0-9]|25[0-5])(?:\.(?:[0-9]|[1-9][0-9]|1[0-9][0-9]|2[0-4][0-9]|25[0-5])){3}|(?:%[0-9a-f][0-9a-f]|[-a-z0-9\._~\u{A0}-\u{D7FF}\u{F900}-\u{FDCF}\u{FDF0}-\u{FFEF}\u{10000}-\u{1FFFD}\u{20000}-\u{2FFFD}\u{30000}-\u{3FFFD}\u{40000}-\u{4FFFD}\u{50000}-\u{5FFFD}\u{60000}-\u{6FFFD}\u{70000}-\u{7FFFD}\u{80000}-\u{8FFFD}\u{90000}-\u{9FFFD}\u{A0000}-\u{AFFFD}\u{B0000}-\u{BFFFD}\u{C0000}-\u{CFFFD}\u{D0000}-\u{DFFFD}\u{E1000}-\u{EFFFD}!\$&'\(\)\*\+,;=@])*)(?::[0-9]*)?(?:\/(?:(?:%[0-9a-f][0-9a-f]|[-a-z0-9\._~\u{A0}-\u{D7FF}\u{F900}-\u{FDCF}\u{FDF0}-\u{FFEF}\u{10000}-\u{1FFFD}\u{20000}-\u{2FFFD}\u{30000}-\u{3FFFD}\u{40000}-\u{4FFFD}\u{50000}-\u{5FFFD}\u{60000}-\u{6FFFD}\u{70000}-\u{7FFFD}\u{80000}-\u{8FFFD}\u{90000}-\u{9FFFD}\u{A0000}-\u{AFFFD}\u{B0000}-\u{BFFFD}\u{C0000}-\u{CFFFD}\u{D0000}-\u{DFFFD}\u{E1000}-\u{EFFFD}!\$&'\(\)\*\+,;=:@]))*)*|\/(?:(?:(?:(?:%[0-9a-f][0-9a-f]|[-a-z0-9\._~\u{A0}-\u{D7FF}\u{F900}-\u{FDCF}\u{FDF0}-\u{FFEF}\u{10000}-\u{1FFFD}\u{20000}-\u{2FFFD}\u{30000}-\u{3FFFD}\u{40000}-\u{4FFFD}\u{50000}-\u{5FFFD}\u{60000}-\u{6FFFD}\u{70000}-\u{7FFFD}\u{80000}-\u{8FFFD}\u{90000}-\u{9FFFD}\u{A0000}-\u{AFFFD}\u{B0000}-\u{BFFFD}\u{C0000}-\u{CFFFD}\u{D0000}-\u{DFFFD}\u{E1000}-\u{EFFFD}!\$&'\(\)\*\+,;=:@]))+)(?:\/(?:(?:%[0-9a-f][0-9a-f]|[-a-z0-9\._~\u{A0}-\u{D7FF}\u{F900}-\u{FDCF}\u{FDF0}-\u{FFEF}\u{10000}-\u{1FFFD}\u{20000}-\u{2FFFD}\u{30000}-\u{3FFFD}\u{40000}-\u{4FFFD}\u{50000}-\u{5FFFD}\u{60000}-\u{6FFFD}\u{70000}-\u{7FFFD}\u{80000}-\u{8FFFD}\u{90000}-\u{9FFFD}\u{A0000}-\u{AFFFD}\u{B0000}-\u{BFFFD}\u{C0000}-\u{CFFFD}\u{D0000}-\u{DFFFD}\u{E1000}-\u{EFFFD}!\$&'\(\)\*\+,;=:@]))*)*)?|(?:(?:(?:%[0-9a-f][0-9a-f]|[-a-z0-9\._~\u{A0}-\u{D7FF}\u{F900}-\u{FDCF}\u{FDF0}-\u{FFEF}\u{10000}-\u{1FFFD}\u{20000}-\u{2FFFD}\u{30000}-\u{3FFFD}\u{40000}-\u{4FFFD}\u{50000}-\u{5FFFD}\u{60000}-\u{6FFFD}\u{70000}-\u{7FFFD}\u{80000}-\u{8FFFD}\u{90000}-\u{9FFFD}\u{A0000}-\u{AFFFD}\u{B0000}-\u{BFFFD}\u{C0000}-\u{CFFFD}\u{D0000}-\u{DFFFD}\u{E1000}-\u{EFFFD}!\$&'\(\)\*\+,;=:@]))+)(?:\/(?:(?:%[0-9a-f][0-9a-f]|[-a-z0-9\._~\u{A0}-\u{D7FF}\u{F900}-\u{FDCF}\u{FDF0}-\u{FFEF}\u{10000}-\u{1FFFD}\u{20000}-\u{2FFFD}\u{30000}-\u{3FFFD}\u{40000}-\u{4FFFD}\u{50000}-\u{5FFFD}\u{60000}-\u{6FFFD}\u{70000}-\u{7FFFD}\u{80000}-\u{8FFFD}\u{90000}-\u{9FFFD}\u{A0000}-\u{AFFFD}\u{B0000}-\u{BFFFD}\u{C0000}-\u{CFFFD}\u{D0000}-\u{DFFFD}\u{E1000}-\u{EFFFD}!\$&'\(\)\*\+,;=:@]))*)*|(?!(?:%[0-9a-f][0-9a-f]|[-a-z0-9\._~\u{A0}-\u{D7FF}\u{F900}-\u{FDCF}\u{FDF0}-\u{FFEF}\u{10000}-\u{1FFFD}\u{20000}-\u{2FFFD}\u{30000}-\u{3FFFD}\u{40000}-\u{4FFFD}\u{50000}-\u{5FFFD}\u{60000}-\u{6FFFD}\u{70000}-\u{7FFFD}\u{80000}-\u{8FFFD}\u{90000}-\u{9FFFD}\u{A0000}-\u{AFFFD}\u{B0000}-\u{BFFFD}\u{C0000}-\u{CFFFD}\u{D0000}-\u{DFFFD}\u{E1000}-\u{EFFFD}!\$&'\(\)\*\+,;=:@])))(?:\?(?:(?:%[0-9a-f][0-9a-f]|[-a-z0-9\._~\u{A0}-\u{D7FF}\u{F900}-\u{FDCF}\u{FDF0}-\u{FFEF}\u{10000}-\u{1FFFD}\u{20000}-\u{2FFFD}\u{30000}-\u{3FFFD}\u{40000}-\u{4FFFD}\u{50000}-\u{5FFFD}\u{60000}-\u{6FFFD}\u{70000}-\u{7FFFD}\u{80000}-\u{8FFFD}\u{90000}-\u{9FFFD}\u{A0000}-\u{AFFFD}\u{B0000}-\u{BFFFD}\u{C0000}-\u{CFFFD}\u{D0000}-\u{DFFFD}\u{E1000}-\u{EFFFD}!\$&'\(\)\*\+,;=:@])|[\u{E000}-\u{F8FF}\u{F0000}-\u{FFFFD}\u{100000}-\u{10FFFD}\/\?])*)?(?:\#(?:(?:%[0-9a-f][0-9a-f]|[-a-z0-9\._~\u{A0}-\u{D7FF}\u{F900}-\u{FDCF}\u{FDF0}-\u{FFEF}\u{10000}-\u{1FFFD}\u{20000}-\u{2FFFD}\u{30000}-\u{3FFFD}\u{40000}-\u{4FFFD}\u{50000}-\u{5FFFD}\u{60000}-\u{6FFFD}\u{70000}-\u{7FFFD}\u{80000}-\u{8FFFD}\u{90000}-\u{9FFFD}\u{A0000}-\u{AFFFD}\u{B0000}-\u{BFFFD}\u{C0000}-\u{CFFFD}\u{D0000}-\u{DFFFD}\u{E1000}-\u{EFFFD}!\$&'\(\)\*\+,;=:@])|[\/\?])*)?)/i

  scan URL_RE do |client, data, urls|
    # do something with `urls`
  end
end

"command does not actually define any methods. " - I think he thought that `command` invocation itself is some kind of weird method definition where `def` is omitted. — Sergio Tulentsev, Oct 27 '16 at 06:39

How is the do ... end loop in slack-ruby-bot sample code structured?

1 Answers1