After some commentary by Facebook friends, we got to writing little scripts that would take a random selection from a group of adjectives and adverbs and put similar phrases together randomly.

What came of this exercise was a fun little jaunt into a variety of programming languages.

PHP
[cc lang="php"] $adverbs = array(
'mentally',
'morally',
'emotionally',
'socially',
'psychologically'
);

$adjectives = array(
'devoid',
'bankrupt',
'empty',
'hollow',
'vacant',
'sleeping with fishes',
'taking a dirt nap',
'shallow'
);

echo $adverbs[array_rand( $adverbs )] . ' '
. $adjectives[array_rand( $adjectives )];
?>[/cc]
Ruby
[cc lang="ruby"]
adj = [ "mentally", "morally",
"emotionally", "socially",
"psychologically" ]

adv = [ "devoid","bankrupt",
"empty", "hollow","vacant",
"sleeping with fishes",
"taking a dirt nap","shallow" ]

print adj[rand(adj.length)] + ” ”
+ adv[rand(adv.length)] + “\n”
[/cc]

Python
[cc lang="python"]
import random

def popchoice(seq):
return seq.pop(random.randrange(len(seq)))

adj = [ 'mentally', 'morally',
'emotionally', 'socially',
'psychologically' ]

adv = [ 'devoid','bankrupt','empty',
'hollow','vacant','sleeping with fishes',
'taking a dirt nap','shallow' ]

print popchoice(adj) + ” ”
+ popchoice(adv)
[/cc]

SQL
[cc lang="sql"]CREATE TEMPORARY TABLE adjectives (
adjective VARCHAR (30) NOT NULL
);

CREATE TEMPORARY TABLE adverbs (
adverb VARCHAR (30) NOT NULL
);

INSERT INTO adjectives (adjective)
VALUES
(‘mentally’),
(‘morally’),
(‘emotionally’),
(‘socially’),
(‘psychologically’);

INSERT INTO adverbs (adverb)
VALUES
(‘devoid’),
(‘bankrupt’),
(‘empty’),
(‘hollow’),
(‘vacant’),
(‘sleeping with fishes’),
(‘taking a dirt nap’),
(‘shallow’);

SELECT CONCAT_WS(
‘ ‘,
( SELECT adjective FROM adjectives ORDER BY RAND() LIMIT 1 ),
( SELECT adverb FROM adverbs ORDER BY RAND() LIMIT 1 ) )
as RandomStuff;
[/cc]

Today, we get into customizations. It does us no good to have an SVN repository with WordPress if we don’t change it to be something other than what it is. In this episode I talk about adding plugins (and you can add any file, really) by adding it to the working copy folder and then checking it in.

I also touched quickly on svn:externals, although I note that I goofed in the screencast and typed svn propedit svn:external . instead of using the correct svn propedit svn:externals . (note the plural externals).

As mentioned, I just moved Shai to WordPress from Expression Engine and it required writing a custom export routine. Instead, I wrote the base class in conjunction with this extension class.

This could very well be a very good example for someone wanting to write their own routine. While it is custom to Expression Engine and would look different for other platforms, the bottom line is that the methods in the base class have to be fed certain data.

As with the base class, this is meant for advanced WordPress hackery and is not a plugin nor for rookies. I don’t mean to sound condescending, but it took me years to wrap my head around object oriented PHP and so please don’t ask me. :-)

I can say that if you dive into this code, you will find the roadmap to your own importer. This is fully functional. It works. It’s for Expression Engine, but it works. Your methods should return similar data.

One day I’ll get around to documenting it, but my mind is mush after working on this all weekend. :-)

Update: Oops, forgot where you can download. Subversion it is again:

svn co http://svn.aaronbrazell.com/wpwxr/tags/expression-engine/ expression-engine