Subject: [sup-talk] how to have an hook play a sound

From: [email-masked] (Giorgio Lando)
Date: Sat, 05 Jan 2008 18:11:10 +0100

Hi again, I do not speak ruby and I am trying to write an after-poll.rb
which plays a sound when there are new messages.
I have tried several things, but probably I am misunderstanding
something radical. I would like that it executes the sound when the
variable @num (the number of polled messages) is >= 1.

My less absurd try is perhaps:

if @num>=1
system "/usr/bin/aplay -q <mysound>"
end

but I get the following error:

Error running hook: undefined method `>=' for nil:NilClass

With:

if @num!=0
system "/usr/bin/aplay -q <mysound>"
end

The sound is always player, also when there is no new message polled.

I have tried to define or declare a class or a method somewhere, but I am really
lost.
Any help?
Giorgio Lando

---

From: [email-masked] (William Morgan)
Date: Sat, 05 Jan 2008 10:43:51 -0800

Excerpts from Giorgio Lando's message of Sat Jan 05 09:11:10 -0800 2008:
> Hi again, I do not speak ruby and I am trying to write an
> after-poll.rb which plays a sound when there are new messages.

No problem. You were just one small character away.

> system "/usr/bin/aplay -q <mysound>"

Just remove the '@'. The variable 'num' is what you want; '@num' refers
to a different, instance, variable. @num is undefined, so it defaults to
'nil', and that's why the error was about an undefined method on the nil
object.

(Incidentally, you can use instance variables to save state between
successive calls to the same hook. Not useful in this case, but in more
complex hooks this is handy.)

> The sound is always player, also when there is no new message polled.

This is because nil is not equal to 0 in Ruby, so the conditional is
always true.

You can also check out the example hooks on the Wiki
(http://sup.rubyforge.org/wiki/wiki.pl?Hooks). Feel free to post your
masterpiece there when completed.

-- 
William <wmorgan-sup at masanjin.net>

---

From: [email-masked] (Giorgio Lando)
Date: Sat, 05 Jan 2008 22:29:56 +0100

> complex hooks this is handy.)

Thanks, now it sounds properly. As soon as I write something a bit more
elaborate. I will publish it in the wiki for sure.
Giorgio