Unspin Spintax with Coffeescript

unspin.coffee

unspin = (text) ->
  # spintax regex: "{" + anything not "{" or "}" + "}"
  findSpintax = -> text.match /{[^{}]+?}/g
  # while we find spintax keep unspinning it
  while findSpintax text
    # find spintax chunks and work on the first one
    spintax = (findSpintax text)[0]
    # put the spintax options in an array
    options = spintax.split '|'
    # choose a random index based on the array length
    randomOption = Math.floor Math.random() * options.length
    # choose a random option
    choice = options[randomOption]
    # the chunk is now unspun so remove the spintax braces from our choice
    choice = choice.replace /{|}/g, ''
    # put our unspun choice back into text
    text = text.replace spintax, choice
    # recursively run unspin
    text = unspin text
  # return the unspun text
  text

# Example usage
sample = '{This {is|could be}|Try this} multi-level {spinning|spintax}.'
unspin sample

# sample output
# Try this multi-level spintax.

To Do

1. check for mismatched spintax braces (a common mistake when writing spintax manually)
2. remove: optionally removes spintax by taking the first option of each spintax chunk
3. all: optionally output all possible spintax variations