
Ask HN: Does anybody remember this random text-substitution software? - themodelplumber
Years back, someone here linked to what I remember as a Wikipedia article for a software tool that would take text like this:<p><pre><code>    I&#x27;d {like|like to take a moment|really like} to show you {our project|this project}
</code></pre>
And randomly choose and insert one of the strings inside of the brackets.<p>Does anybody remember that? I&#x27;m looking for that or a similar software package &#x2F; script. I think I could write it myself but I&#x27;m hoping I don&#x27;t need to roll my own as it&#x27;s just one more component in a larger project. Thanks!
======
dylz
The phrase is 'text spinner', you can probably find snippets for parsing it in
anything. it's largely used in spam.

~~~
themodelplumber
Thanks! And that's pretty frustrating, I was completely blind in my search for
lack of a single phrase. Text spinner, who would have thought. Anyway--you're
right on and I appreciate the help. A bit amusing that it's known as a spam
tool too, but I can see why.

------
LarryMade2
Doesn't look hard to create - like the format. I did one for a silly fortune
teller where I set up the random parts into individual arrays... This makes
more sense,, a little bit more parsing code but easier to maintain.

------
kburman
I think I once saw this feature in a bulk SMS sender. It might be Twillo but
not sure about it.

