A needs manipulation script.

needs.lua

-- this following part is for our documentation
--[[=begin

needs
=====
shows needs of a unit. 

=end]]

local args={...} --let's get the command line arguments to a nice table

--nice scripts use various tools to get args from commandline, this is just a quick script, not for production use!

local action=args[1] -- what do we want to do

local unit=dfhack.gui.getSelectedUnit() --get selected unit. You need to be in "z" view for adventure mode

local needs=unit.status.current_soul.personality.unk_v4201_1a --this will change with next dfhack version. Probably last part will be just "needs"
if action=="list" then
	for i,v in ipairs(needs) do --iterate over all needs
		local need_name=df.need_type[v.unk_0] --get the name
		print(need_name,v.unk_8,v.unk_c)
	end
elseif action=="add" then
	local need_type=df.need_type[args[2]] --this converts from string to number for need_type
	local focus_level=tonumber(args[3]) --goes to 400 when unit satisfies need
	local need_level=tonumber(args[4]) --how fast focus_level decreases when it below 0
	needs:insert("#",{new=true,unk_0=need_type,unk_4=-1,unk_8=focus_level,unk_c=need_level}) --now this is a strange thing
	--insert accepts id for first param. If you replace it with "#" it inserts at the end.
	--Also dfhack gladly converts a table with value new=true to a type you need, so you can skip the nasty type definitions
	--also it accepts key-value pairs and sets the inserted structure fields to those
elseif action=="fulfill" then
	if args[2]=="all" then --if you pass "all" instead of id
		for i,v in ipairs(needs) do --iterate over all the needs 
			v.unk_8=400 --fulfilling them
		end
	else
		local to_fulfill=tonumber(args[2]) --get the id to fulfill
		needs[to_fulfill].unk_8=400 --fulfill it!
	end
elseif action=="remove" then
	local to_remove=tonumber(args[2]) --get the id to remove
	needs:erase(to_remove) --remove it
end