Reworked that look() methods on Players and Objects into at_look. They were also changed to accept pre-searched target objects rather than the command string. They also return a processed look string rather than sending it directly. The reason for this is that methods on the typeclass should not be handling command parsing - this should be the exclusive job of Command.parse in order to make command parsing completely contained withing one system. Likewise, it makes for more flexibility to not call self.msg() inside at_look but to let the outside caller do this explicitly - it might want to modify and append to the string before sending it off (something not used anywhere yet but which may be interesting). In order to correctly keep parsing entirely in the command body for the player, I made a custom parent for CmdOOCLook and CmdOOC, which does the parsing of the 'playable' characters already at the parse() step, storing the result in the .playable property on the (player-) command. This technique could probably be applied to other player commands looking up the _playable_characters Attribute, in order to centralize it.

evennia/players/players.py

@@ -21,7 +21,7 @@ from evennia.comms.models import ChannelDB
 from evennia.commands import cmdhandler
 from evennia.utils import logger
 from evennia.utils.utils import (lazy_property, to_str,
-                                 make_iter, to_unicode,
+                                 make_iter, to_unicode, is_iter,
                                  variable_from_module)
 from evennia.typeclasses.attributes import NickHandler
 from evennia.scripts.scripthandler import ScriptHandler
@@ -700,7 +700,7 @@ class DefaultPlayer(with_metaclass(TypeclassBase, PlayerDB)):
         elif _MULTISESSION_MODE in (2, 3):
             # In this mode we by default end up at a character selection
             # screen. We execute look on the player.
-            self.look(sessid=sessid)
+            self.msg(self.at_look(sessid=sessid))
 
     def at_failed_login(self, session):
         """
@@ -765,29 +765,28 @@ class DefaultPlayer(with_metaclass(TypeclassBase, PlayerDB)):
         """
         pass
 
-    def look(self, arg_string=None, sessid=None):
-        if _MULTISESSION_MODE < 2:
-            # only one character allowed
-            string = "You are out-of-character (OOC).\nUse {w@ic{n to get back into the game."
-            self.msg(string)
-        elif arg_string:
-            key = arg_string.lower()
-            chars = dict((to_str(char.key.lower()), char)
-                         for char in self.db._playable_characters)
-            looktarget = chars.get(key)
-            if looktarget:
-                self.msg(looktarget.return_appearance(self))
-            else:
-                self.msg("No such character.")
-        else:
-            # get all our characters and sessions
-            characters = self.db._playable_characters
+    def at_look(self, target=None, sessid=None):
+        """
+        Called when this object executes a look. It allows to customize
+        just what this means.
 
-            if characters is not None:
-                if None in characters:
-                    # clean up list if character object was deleted in between
-                    characters = [character for character in characters if character]
-                    self.db._playable_characters = characters
+        Args:
+            target (Object or list, optional): An object or a list
+                objects to inspect.
+            sessid (int, optional): Id of the session doing this look.
+
+        Returns:
+            look_string (str): A prepared look string, ready to send
+                off to any recipient (usually to ourselves)
+
+        """
+
+        if target and not is_iter(target):
+            # single target - just show it
+            return target.return_appearance()
+        else:
+            # list of targets - make list
+            characters = target
 
             sessions = self.get_all_sessions()
             is_su = self.is_superuser
@@ -826,7 +825,7 @@ class DefaultPlayer(with_metaclass(TypeclassBase, PlayerDB)):
                     if csessid:
                         # character is already puppeted
                         sessi = self.get_session(csessid)
-                        for sess in utils.make_iter(sessi):
+                        for sess in make_iter(sessi):
                             sid = sess in sessions and sessions.index(sess) + 1
                             if sess and sid:
                                 string += "\n - {G%s{n [%s] (played by you in session %i)" % (char.key, ", ".join(char.permissions.all()), sid)
@@ -836,7 +835,7 @@ class DefaultPlayer(with_metaclass(TypeclassBase, PlayerDB)):
                         # character is "free to puppet"
                         string += "\n - %s [%s]" % (char.key, ", ".join(char.permissions.all()))
             string = ("-" * 68) + "\n" + string + "\n" + ("-" * 68)
-            self.msg(string)
+            return string
 
 
 class DefaultGuest(DefaultPlayer):