Quickstart

Wonderwords is a lightweight python tool that can be used to generate random words and sentences. In this tutorial you will learn the basics of Wonderwords and the command line interface. This tutorial is meant for those who have never used Wonderwords or those who want to learn more about it. For a full reference of all commands, visit the API documentation.

Note

This tutorial assumes you have already installed Wonderwords. If this is not the case, head over to the Install, Uninstall and Upgrade page before proceeding.

The RandomWord class

One of the core Wonderwords classes is the RandomWord class. This class encapsulates operations dealing with individual words. One method of this class is the word method, which can be used to generate individual random words:

>>> from wonderwords import RandomWord
>>>
>>> w = RandomWord()
>>> w.word()
'sordid'

Calling the word class returned a string containing a word. When using Wonderwords, it is helpful to create an instance of the RandomWord class in the top-level module of your project and import it when necessary. Wonderwords loads word lists only once. If you create a second RandomWord instance, the word lists won’t be loaded twice.

The word Method

What if we want to generate a word that starts with a certain string, say n? Here is where the starts_with and ends_with arguments come into play. For example, to retrieve a word that starts with "n" and ends with "es", we can do the following:

>>> w.word(starts_with="n", ends_with="es")
'noodles'

You don’t have to use both arguments. You can specify either one individually like so:

>>> w.word(starts_with="can")
'cannon'

Sometimes, however, we may try to look for a pattern that doesn’t exist. In that case a NoWordsToChoseFrom exception is raised:

>>> w.word(starts_with="ja", ends_with="ka")
NoWordsToChoseFrom: There aren't enough words to choose from. Cannot generate 1 word(s)

We can also narrow down a word by part of speech. By default, nouns, verbs and adjectives are all enabled. If you want to generate a word by only a certain part of speech, you can use the include_categories parameter:

>>> w.word(include_categories=["adjective"])
'tough'
>>> w.word(include_categories=["noun", "verb"])
'cinder'

We can also filter words by length using the word_min_length and word_max_length parameters:

>>> w.word(word_min_length=5)
'documentary'
>>> w.word(word_max_length=3)
'dog'
>>> w.word(word_min_length=9, word_max_length=10)
'velodrome'

Finally, we can filter words by a custom python regular expression:

>>> w.word(regex="..")
'TV'
>>> w.word(regex=".*a")
'terracotta'

Remember that we can combine multiple filters together, like so:

>>> w.word(
...     word_min_length=4,
...     starts_with="k",
...     include_categories=["verb"]
... )
'keep'

The filter method

As you saw above, the word class allows the filtering of many words. What if we want to get a list of all words that match a certain filter? The filter method allows us to get all words matching a certain criteria:

>>> w.filter(word_min_length=4, starts_with="loc")
['locality',
 'local',
 'locket',
 'location',
 'locomotive',
 'locust',
 'locker',
 'lock',
 'locate']

The filter method has the same arguments as the word method, except it returns all matching words, while the word method matches a random word fitting the criteria.

The random_words method

The random_words method acts just like the filter method, except with two differences:

  • You can limit the amount of words fitting the criteria
  • If there aren’t enough words to reach the limit, a NoWordsToChoseFrom exception is raised unless return_less_if_necessary is set to True.

This method is useful if you want to get a list of words:

>>> w.random_words(3)
['prince', 'handover', 'cell']
>>> w.random_words(4, word_min_length=5, starts_with="a")
['abrogation', 'animal', 'appropriation', 'angry']
>>> w.random_words(3, word_min_length=5, starts_with="alg") # The exception is
...                                                         # raised as 3 words cannot be generated
NoWordsToChoseFrom: There aren't enough words to choose from. Cannot generate 3 word(s)
>>> w.random_words(3, word_min_length=5, starts_with="alg", return_less_if_necessary=True)
['algebra', 'algorithm']

The RandomSentence class

Wonderwords makes generation of structured sentences made of random words easy. The RandomSentence class houses many of these features. You should keep an instance of this class at the top-level of your project just like the RandomWord class:

>>> from wonderwords import RandomSentence
>>>
>>> s = RandomSentence()

Creating sentences with the RandomSentence class

The RandomSentence class provides multiple methods to generate random sentences, for example:

>>> s.bare_bone_sentence() # generate a bare-bone sentence (The [subject] [predicate])
'The hut frames.'
>>> s.simple_sentence() # generate a simple sentence
'The reprocessing formulates enrollment.'
>>> s.sentence() # a sentence with a subject, predicate, adjective and direct object
'The strong mean shears movement.'

As you can see, these sentences have almost no meaning, and are very simple and structured. These sentences are good for creating memorable phrases for your programs.

The Wonderwords CLI

Note

in the following section, terminal prompts will be denoted by $. Do not copy the $ when copying the code in this section.

Wonderwords also provides a CLI, or command line interface which is installed along with the python modules. To use the CLI, open your terminal and type the command wonderwords:

$ wonderwords

╭─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╮
│                                                                             │
│                             WONDERWORDS 2.0.0a1                             │
│                                                                             │
╰─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯

                             No commands given 😞                             


                              Available Commands

 • wonderwords -w - generate a random word
 • wonderwords -f - get all words matching a certain criteria
 • wonderwords -l AMOUNT - get a list of AMOUNT random words
 • wonderwords -s SENT_TYPE - generate a random sentence of a certain type

For a list of all options, type wonderwords -h. To see a detailed and
comprehensive explanation of the commands, visit the documentation

When typing the wonderwords command, you are greeted with a main page with basic information, such as basic commands and the wonderwords version. To get a full list of commands, type wonderwords -h or wonderwords --help.

Generating random words

To generate a random word, use the -w or --word flag. A random word will be printed to the console:

$ wonderwords -w

poison

All of the filters that you have learned above have their own commands, too:

$ wonderwords -w -sw a -ew e # -sw: starts with, -ew ends with; word that starts with a and ends with e
$ wonderwords -w -p nouns verbs # -p: parts of speech; select only nouns and verbs
$ wonderwords -w -min 3 -max 5 # -min: minimum length, -max maximum length; minimum length 3 and maximum length 5

Generating filters and lists

You can also generate filters with the -f flag and lists with the -l flag. All modifiers such as -sw and -min can also be used. Additionally, the -d flag can set a delimiter between words:

$ wonderwords -f -min 3 # get all words with a minimum length of 3
$ wonderwords -l 5 -sw ap # get 5 words that start with "ap"
$ wonderwords -l 3 -d " | " # get 3 random words separated with " | "

Generating random sentences

The -s flag followed by a sentence type can generate a random sentence. The options of type are:

  • bb: bare-bone sentence
  • ss: simple sentence
  • bba: bare-bone sentence with adjective
  • s: a simple sentence plus and adjective

For example:

$ wonderwords -s bb # generate a bare-bone sentence
$ wonderwords -s ss # generate a simple sentence

And that’s it!

The quickstart tutorial has come to an end. In this tutorial, you learned the basics of Wonderwords. More specifically, you learned about:

  • The RandomWord class
    • The word method
    • The filter method
    • The random_words method
  • The RandomSentence class and some of its methods
  • How to use the Wonderwords command line interface

What’s next?

After you have gotten comfortable using wonderwords, check out the Advanced Tutorial tutorial. You can use the API reference for help on specific classes, and functions. If you want to contribute, please read the contribution guidelines. If you have any problems, bugs, or feature requests, please open up an issue on the Wonderwords GitHub page.