Comma quibbling is a task originally set by Eric Lippert in his blog.



Task

Write a function to generate a string output which is the concatenation of input words from a list/sequence where:

 An input of no words produces the output string of just the two brace characters "{}".
 An input of just one word, e.g. ["ABC"], produces the output string of the word inside the two braces, e.g. "{ABC}".
 An input of two words, e.g. ["ABC", "DEF"], produces the output string of the two words inside the two braces with the words separated by the string " and ", e.g. "{ABC and DEF}".
 An input of three or more words, e.g. ["ABC", "DEF", "G", "H"], produces the output string of all but the last word separated by ", " with the last word separated by " and " and all within braces; e.g. "{ABC, DEF, G and H}".


Test your function with the following series of inputs showing your output here on this page:

 [] # (No input words).
 ["ABC"]
 ["ABC", "DEF"]
 ["ABC", "DEF", "G", "H"]


Note: Assume words are non-empty strings of uppercase characters for this task.




 
EnableExplicit
 
Procedure.s CommaQuibble(Input$)
  Protected i, count
  Protected result$, word$
  Input$ = RemoveString(Input$, "[")
  Input$ = RemoveString(Input$, "]")
  Input$ = RemoveString(Input$, #DQUOTE$)
  count = CountString(Input$, ",") + 1
  result$ = "{"
  For i = 1 To count
    word$ = StringField(Input$, i, ",")
    If i = 1
      result$ + word$
    ElseIf Count = i
      result$ + " and " + word$      
    Else
      result$ + ", " + word$
    EndIf
  Next
  ProcedureReturn result$ + "}"
EndProcedure
 
If OpenConsole()
  ; As 3 of the strings contain embedded quotes these need to be escaped with '\' and the whole string preceded by '~'
  PrintN(CommaQuibble("[]"))
  PrintN(CommaQuibble(~"[\"ABC\"]"))
  PrintN(CommaQuibble(~"[\"ABC\",\"DEF\"]"))
  PrintN(CommaQuibble(~"[\"ABC\",\"DEF\",\"G\",\"H\"]"))
  PrintN("")
  PrintN("Press any key to close the console")
  Repeat: Delay(10) : Until Inkey() <> ""
  CloseConsole()
EndIf
 