Automatic text generation

[Paul Smith]

On 3/17/07, Les <hlhowell at pacbell.net> wrote:
> > I have a long spreadsheet as follows:
> >
> > X1    X2      X3      X4      X5
> > 2     6       1       1       4
> > 2     1       3       1       5
> > 3     3       3       4       6
> > 4     2       5       3       4
> > 6     6       5       1       1
> > 5     6       4       1       3
> >
> > [...]
> >
> > For each number and for each X variable, there is a small piece of
> > text. I am looking for a program to replace, for each spreadsheet line
> > and for each number therein, the respective text and create a phrase
> > concatenating the pieces of text corresponding to the numbers. Is
> > there some tool to accomplish this goal?
> >
> > Thanks in advance,
> >
> > Paul
> >
> Hi, Paul,
>         I assume that the text is also in your spreadsheet.  So you actually
> have something like:
>
> X1      X2       X3       X4        X5   TEXT
> 2       6       1       1       4    abc
> 2       1       3       1       5    def
> 3       3       3       4       6    ghi
> 4       2       5       3       4    jkl
> 6       6       5       1       1    mno
> 5       6       4       1       3    pqr
>
>
> You want something to come out somewhere that would be a phrase consisting of text(2) text(6) text(1) text(1) text(4)
>
> so, you want to index the text column from the data at each row,column pair.
> Now create a new sheet in the same workbook.  In this sheet, have it do something like:
>
> =INDIRECT(sheet1.text,index(sheet1.text,X1,2))
>
> You will need to refer to the help pages in open office to get a more
> refined solution.  This requires that you have defined the cell column
> names.
>
> If you are attempting to generate some form of Haiku, this will work.
> If you are attempting a substitution cipher for encryption, be aware
> that most countries will be very highly upset, and could result in
> severe consequences for such use in communications.
>
> A spreadsheet is probably not the best tool for this type of
> application.  You will quickly find it too difficult to manage the
> entries, and there will be a severe limitation on the number of words
> and phrases that will result.
>
> You might be interested in perusing some of the language forums in the
> IEEE archives, or the ACM.  There is also a considerable body of work
> available from Russia on AI that deals with language and language
> generation.
>
> Resolving language is seldom a question of just words.  Most human
> languages use an evolutionary structure that will result in
> prefix(es)-root(s)-suffix(es) that makes the word choice quite large.
> Even children of 12 have vocabularies that exceed 32,000 words, and I do
> not believe that that includes the full prefix/suffix expansion.
> Additionally our marvelous brains allow us to use language by means of
> only 70% or so clarity and still produce reasonable results.  This is
> one of the difficulties of language for computers.  And this doesn't
> include the non word verbalizations (Hmmmm?) or non verbal aspects such
> as body language or facial expression.  Add in the criteria of word
> choice, syntax, environment, currency of the conversation, and it is
> quite a computing issue.
>
>         If you would give me more information about your goal, I might be able
> to point you in a productive direction, but YMMV.

Thanks again to all. I just want to create a small report on about 100
assignments of my students. To speed up this task, I imagined that I
could place a number for each item corresponding to the sub-phrase to
be inserted in the report. Since many sub-phrases are frequent, I am
looking for a solution to automate the procedure, thus increasing my
productivity. After having thought a bit, I suspect that a spreadsheet
will be enough, as Peter suggests.

Paul