spell(1)
spell, hashmake, spellin, hashcheck, compress --
find spelling errors
Synopsis
spell [-b] [-i] [-l] [-v] [-x] [+local_file] [files]
/usr/lib/spell/hashmake
/usr/lib/spell/spellin n
/usr/lib/spell/hashcheck
/usr/share/lib/spell/compress
Description
spell
collects words from the named
files
and looks them up in a spelling list.
Words that neither occur among nor are derivable
(by applying certain inflections,
prefixes, and/or suffixes) from words in the spelling list
are printed on the standard output.
If no
files
are named,
words are collected from the standard input.
spell ignores most troff, tbl,
and eqn constructions.
It also ignores punctuation marks and special characters (for example, ``_'' and ``='').
-b-
British spelling is checked.
Besides preferring
centre,
colour,
programme,
speciality,
travelled,
and so on,
this option insists upon
-ise
in words like
standardise,
Fowler and the
OED
(Oxford English Dictionary)
to the contrary
notwithstanding.
-i-
Ignore the troff requests .so and .nx.
By default, spell (like deroff) follows chains of included files.
-l-
Follow the chains of all included files.
By default, spell (like deroff)
follows chains of included files
(.so and .nx troff
requests), unless the names of such included files begin with
/usr/lib.
-v-
All words not literally in the spelling list are printed,
and plausible derivations from the words in the spelling list are indicated.
-x-
Every plausible stem is displayed, one per line, with
``=''
preceding each word.
+local_file-
Words found in
local_file
are removed from
spell's
output.
local_file
is the name of a user-provided file that contains a sorted list of words,
one per line.
The list must be sorted with the ordering used by
sort(1)
(for example, upper case preceding lower case).
If this ordering is not followed, some entries in
local_file
may be ignored.
With this option, the user can
specify a set of words
that are correct spellings (in addition to
spell's
own spelling list)
for each job.
The spelling list is based on many sources,
and while more haphazard than an ordinary
dictionary, is also more effective with respect to
proper names and popular technical words.
Coverage of
the specialized vocabularies of biology,
medicine, and chemistry is light.
Alternate auxiliary files
(spelling lists, stop list, history file)
may be specified on the command line by using environment variables.
These variables and their default settings are shown in the
Files section.
Copies of all misspellings and entries that specify the login,
tty, and time of each invocation of spell are accumulated in the
history file.
The stop list filters out
misspellings (for example, thier=thy-y+ier)
that would otherwise pass.
The following routines help maintain and check the hash lists used by
spell:
hashmake-
Reads a list of words from the standard input and
writes the corresponding nine-digit hash code on the standard output.
This is the first step in creating a new spelling list or adding words
to an existing list; it must be used prior to using
spellin.
spellin-
Reads n hash codes (created by
hashmake) from the standard input and writes a compressed spelling list on the
standard output.
The hash codes must be sorted before input to spellin.
Use spellin
to add words to an existing spelling list or create a new spelling list.
hashcheck-
Reads a compressed
spelling_list
and recreates the nine-digit hash codes for all the words in it;
it writes these codes on the standard output.
It takes as input an existing spelling list
(hlista or hlistb)
or a list created or modified by
spellin.
By using hashcheck on an existing compressed
spelling_list and hashmake
on a file of selected words,
you can compare the two output files to determine if the selected words
are present in the existing
spelling_list.
compress-
When spell is executed, the misspelled words are
added to a file called spellhist.
This file may
contain identical entries since the same word may be
misspelled during different executions of spell.
The compress program deletes redundant misspelled
words in the spellhist
file, thereby reducing the size of the file, making it
easier to analyze.
Files
D_SPELL=/usr/share/lib/spell/hlist[ab]-
hashed spelling lists, American & British
S_SPELL=/usr/share/lib/spell/hstop-
hashed stop list
H_SPELL=/var/adm/spellhist-
history file
/usr/lib/spell/spellprog-
program
References
deroff(1),
eqn(1bsd),
sed(1),
sort(1),
tbl(1bsd),
tee(1),
troff(1bsd)
Notices
The spelling list's coverage is uneven;
new installations will probably wish to
monitor the output for several months to gather
local additions.
Typically, these are kept in a separate local file
that is added to the hashed
spelling_list
via spellin.
© 2004 The SCO Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
UnixWare 7 Release 7.1.4 - 25 April 2004