Module:Political party

Documentation for this module may be created at Module:Political party/doc

local p = {}

local function stripToNil(text)
	-- If text is a string, return its trimmed content, or nil if empty.
	-- Otherwise return text (which may, for example, be nil).
	if type(text) == 'string' then
		text = text:match('(%S.-)%s*$')
	end
	return text
end

-- Example of having all the data - color and names - in one table. Requires one page to be edited instead of two when adding a new party.
function p.fetch(frame)
	-- Initialise and populate variables
	local args = frame.args
 	local party = stripToNil(args[1]) or error('parameter 1 should be a party name')
	local out_type = stripToNil(args[2]) or error('parameter 2 should be the output type')
	local index = mw.ustring.sub(party, 1, 1)
	
	-- Set index for non-A-Z starts
	if string.match(index, '%A') then
		index = '1'
	end
	
	-- Load data from submodule
	local data = mw.loadData('Module:Political names/' .. index)
	local data_all = data.full
	local data_alt = data.alternate

	party = data_all[party] or data_all[data_alt[party]] or data_alt[party]
	if not party then
		return "" -- return an error
	end

	local return_value = party[out_type]

	-- If database value doesn't exist, return input (for shortname) or error (for others)
	if return_value == nil and frame.args[1] ~= nil then
		if out_type == 'shortname' then
			return_value = party
		else
			return_value = error('value not in template. Please request that it be added')
		end
	end
	
	if out_type == 'color' and string.find(return_value, '#') then
		return_value = string.gsub(return_value, '#', '#')
	end
	return return_value	
end

return p