Exercise 7.1

Example 7-1 (stored b/c could not be saved)

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;

#Erika Phelps
#Sept 30, 2009
#Ex 7-1: Children's game with random numbers

#Declare the variables
my $count;
my $input;
my $number;
my $sentence;
my $story;

#Here are the arrays of parts of sentences

my @nouns = (

    'Dad', 'TV', 'Mom', 'Groucho', 'Rebecca', 'Harpo', 'Robin Hood',
    'Joe and Moe',
    );

my @verbs = (

    'ran to', 'giggled with', 'put hot sauce into the orange juice of',
    'exploded', 'dissolved', 'sang stupid songs with', 'jumped with',
    );

my @prepositions = (

    'at the store', 'over the rainbow', 'just for the fun of it', 
    'at the beach', 'in New York City', 'in a dream', 'around the world',
    );

#Seed the random number generator

srand(time|$$);

#This do-until loop composes six sentence "stories" until the user types quit.

do {

    #(Re)set $story to the empty string each time through the loop

    $story = '';

    #Make six sentences per story

    for ($count = 0, $count <6; $count++) {

        #Notes on the following statements:
        #1) scalar @array gives the number of elements in the array.
        #2) rand returns a random number greater than 0 and less than 
            #scalar value
        #3) int removes the fractional part of a number
        #4) . joins two strings together

        $sentence = $nouns[int(rand(scalar @nouns))]
            . ""
            . $verbs[int(rand(scalar @verbs))]
            . ""
            . $nouns[int(rand(scalar @nouns))]
            . ""
            . $prepositions[int(rand(scalar @prepositions))]
            . '.';

        $story .= $sentence;
    }

    #Print the story

    print "\n",$story,"\n";

    #Get user input.

    print "\nType \"quit\" to quit, or press Enter to continue: ";

    $input = <STDIN>;

    #Exit the loop at user's request

} until($input =~ /^\s*q/i);

exit;