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Annotation of coherent/d/bin/spell/READ_ME, revision 1.1

1.1     ! root        1:        This directory contains the sources for the spell and typo commands.
        !             2: This file is intended to aid the dictionary maintainer in tuning it
        !             3: for his local site.
        !             4: 
        !             5: The Dictionary
        !             6: 
        !             7:        The dictionaries for both typo and spell are stored in the directory
        !             8: `/usr/dict'.  We will not discuss the typo dictionary here as it is not
        !             9: intended to be extended, rather being provided as a screen of the most common
        !            10: words.  Remaining words are ordered statistically, rather than by dictionary
        !            11: lookup.  Conversely, spell uses an exact membership tester rather than one of
        !            12: the several approximate membership tester techniques found in the literature.
        !            13: The resultant small speed penalty is more than offset by the ability to have an
        !            14: almost perfect lookup record with essentially no misses.  The only misses
        !            15: will be such misspelling as the wrong homonym (`their' for `there') or
        !            16: the misuse of a proper name (e.g. `manuel' for `manual').
        !            17: 
        !            18:        The dictionary is maintained as a set of word lists.  As there
        !            19: are really two dictionaries--a British one and an American one--a set
        !            20: of common words (`common') is maintained as well as files with each of
        !            21: American (`american') and British (`british') spellings.  More will be
        !            22: said later about what words should go into each file.  In addition, there
        !            23: is a file reserved for the local dictionary maintainer, called `local',
        !            24: which allows him to add words without changing the distributed lists.
        !            25: These files can be merged (`sort -mu common british local' or
        !            26: `sort -mu common american local') to produce the two master lists.
        !            27: These lists are never normally stored in this form, rather the compressed
        !            28: lists are stored.  This compression reduces the amount of I/O that must
        !            29: occur for the spell command to read in the dictionary.  These compressed
        !            30: files are named `clista' and `clistb', for American and British, respectively.
        !            31: The shell file `build' reconstructs the compressed lists from these components
        !            32: by using the above `sort' commands and the internal comman
        !            33: `/usr/src/cmd/spell/spellin' which takes a list of words on its
        !            34: standard input and produces a compressed list on its standard output.
        !            35: 
        !            36:        In these words lists, a trailing asterisk (`#') on a word implies that
        !            37: there is an optional `s'.  This may signify a plural or a different verb form.
        !            38: This shorthand is included so that such plurals can be cheaply maintained
        !            39: without the sacrifice in accuracy that would occur with arbitrary suffix
        !            40: and prefix stripping code.
        !            41: 
        !            42: British Versus American
        !            43: 
        !            44:        Since there is some dissension in British spelling regarding words
        !            45: that end in `ize' or `ise', the `ize' spelling is included in the common
        !            46: file and a corresponding entry with `ise' is put into the British file
        !            47: (e.g. optimize vs. optimise).  Such words as `honor' vs. `honour' are
        !            48: put into the American and British files, respectively.  However,
        !            49: in the US there are words which are spelled two ways (e.g. `glamour' vs.
        !            50: `glamor') so that the former is put into the common file and the
        !            51: latter is put into the American file.  There are no hard and fast rules
        !            52: in any case, and thus there are bound to be disagreements no matter what
        !            53: is done here.
        !            54: 
        !            55: Updating Word Lists
        !            56: 
        !            57:        Spell maintains a history file, `spellhist', which contains all
        !            58: misspelled words that are found.  This will contain a large number of
        !            59: words that should not go into the dictionary (e.g. opcodes, variable names,
        !            60: very obscure technical terms, etc.) as well as words that should be added.
        !            61: This list should be screened periodically and truncated.
        !            62: 
        !            63:        Some of the files, especially `common', are too large to edit with
        !            64: `ed' and thus the stream editor (`sed') can be used to manipulate it.
        !            65: Also, if it is desired to change `common' rather than `local', new words
        !            66: can be put in by creating a new words file, say `new', and merging it
        !            67: with sort into a new `common' file (e.g. `sort -mu -o common common new').
        !            68: 
        !            69:        As well, it is always a good idea to check when adding new words
        !            70: that the singular is not already there to save adding a plural.
        !            71: For example, if the word `macro' was already in the dictionary and
        !            72: `macros' was to be added, one could issue the following `sed' command
        !            73: to change `macro' to `macro#' (singular or plural):
        !            74:        sed 's/^macro$/macro#/' common >new; mv new common
        !            75: 
        !            76:        One last word of caution is in order.  Word lists that are updated
        !            77: should be scrupulously checked for errors with a dictionary.  Nothing is
        !            78: worse than a spelling dictionary with misspellings in it.  This can happen
        !            79: quite easily if a common misspelling is believed from the history file.

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