Advanced Verb Use:Phrasal Verbs

In addition to the verb properties covered in the previous doc, there is also a lesser used set of properties that can be used to define phrasal verb patterns, which get converted into regular expressions that can be used to find verb phrases consisting of a verb and one or more prepositions separated by nouns. For example, you might define verb tie_to_with to handle input such as "tie dog to tree with rope", with the pattern verb_noun_prep_noun_prep_noun: ["tie to with"]. It's also possible to define multiple patterns for a single noun. Here's an example of how to define a verb with phrasal patterns.

MyGame.createVerb({
  name: "tie_to_with",
  prettyname: "tie to",
  verb_noun_prep_noun_prep_noun: ["tie to with"],
  doTry: function (input) {
    // custom logic here
    return true;
  },
  doSuccess: function (input) {
    // custom logic here
    return true;
  },
});

Earlier in its development, AdventureJS relied exclusively on finding verb phrases. For example, instead of one swing verb, it had separate verbs for swing_to, swing_to_on, swing_on_to, swing_from_to, and swing_from_to_on. Eventually, it moved toward more robust (and complex) natural language processing and concomitant logic. But, the earlier system remains in place and is used for a few verbs like go to. Authors wishing to write custom verbs may find this system easier than writing logic to handle all prepositions. The function that joins phrasal verbs is called early in the input parsing cycle, meaning that custom verbs defined this way will take precedence over other text transformations that occur during parsing.