gordon

a natural language event-emitter interface.

usage

Gordon's interface is based on the traditional event emitter, but with a few twists to support the ideas of natural language. Event names work like normal, but pennyworth templates can be associated with event names for a more natural experience.

When .emit() is called with a natural language string, gordon will find the most appropriate registered event and use its most appropriate template to parse the emitted text. The event will then be fired with the event data being the compiled template.

initializing a new emitter

var Gordon = require('gordon');
var emitter = new Gordon();

adding an event listener

For unregistered events, you can use .when() to attach an event handler to a trigger template.

emitter.when('my name is $subject.', function (data) {
  console.log('hello there, %s', data.subject);
});

registering an event

To register an event is to associate a certain trigger template or list of templates with an event. This allows you to hook onto a group of templates that will provide you with the same data.

On every call, you can register a single template or a list of templates. Follow up calls will not re-allocate the template list but rather append to it.

emitter.register('introduction', [
  '[... hi, hey, hello], $subject.',
  'how are you, $subject?'
]);

attaching to an event

This works exactly the same as with a regular event emitter.

emitter.on('introduction', function (data) {
  console.log('hello there, %s.', data.subject);
});

emitting an event (using a trigger)

Call emit with a trigger, which is the input data to a pennyworth template.

emitter.emit('hey, Gordon.');