update from George Bergman (gbergman@cartan.berkeley.edu)

[unix-history] / usr / src / usr.bin / spell / README

Copyright (c) 1987 Regents of the University of California.
All rights reserved.  The Berkeley software License Agreement
specifies the terms and conditions for redistribution.

	@(#)README	1.2 (Berkeley) %G%

All files and subdirectories of this directory are recommended for
rdisting except web2 and web2a (because of their size).  Details on
most of these files is described under FILES below.

The new subdirectory "special" contains lists of words in specialized
fields, which may be hashed in with the regular lists on machines
having many users working in these fields.  As of this writing, it
contains two files.

It is advised that system managers also create a directory
/usr/local/dict.  (Such a directory will probably be provided, empty,
in the next release.)  This can be used to maintain files of particular
interest to users of the machine (e.g., surnames of members of the
department on a departmental machine).

Here is a script that might be used to customize the hashlists on a
machine to include the words in /usr/dict/special/xxx, as well as two
local lists called /usr/local/dict/surnames and
/usr/local/dict/acronyms.

	#
	cd /usr/dict
	mv hlista hlista.0; mv hlistb hlistb.0
	cat special/xxx /usr/local/dict/{surnames,acronyms} | spellin hlista.0 > hlista
	cat special/xxx /usr/local/dict/{surnames,acronyms} | spellin hlistb.0 > hlistb

The new hashed lists, being named /usr/dict/hlist[ab], become the
default lists for "spell"; the old lists can still be called with the -d
option.

Wordlists are in general sorted as in sort -df.  This makes no
difference for spell's hashing process, but will make a difference
commands that search them directly (such as "look").

--------------------------------------------------------------------
FILES and subdirectories in /usr/dict:
    words -- everyday words, and important technical terms from all
	fields, that are spelled the same in British and American usage.
    american -- spellings accepted in American but not British usage.
    british -- spellings accepted in British but not American usage.
    stop -- forms that would otherwise be derivable by "spell" from
	words in one of the above files, but should not be accepted.
    hlista -- hashed list formed from files {words,american}.
    hlistb -- hashed list formed from files {words,british}.
    hstop  -- hashed list formed from file stop.
    web2 -- words from Webster's 2nd International (see WEB below).
    web2a -- compounds and phrases from Webster's 2nd International.
    README -- this file
    papers/ -- an (out-of-date) bibliographical database, used as the
	default by the program "refer".
    special/ -- directory of less common terms from specialized fields
	special/4bsd -- commands and system calls (as in
	    /usr/man/man[1238n]), and builtin csh commands (listed in
	    /usr/man/man1/csh.1) of the current version of 4bsd Unix.
	    (Supersedes old "/usr/src/usr.bin/spell/local".)
	math -- technical mathematical terms not in /usr/dict/words.

WEB (intro provided in posting)--------------------------------------
Welcome to Webster's Second International, all 234,936 words worth.
The 1934 copyright has elapsed, according to the supplier.  The
supplemental 'web2a' list contains hyphenated terms as well as assorted
noun and adverbial phrases.  The wordlist makes a dandy 'grep' victim.

     -- James A. Woods    {ihnp4,hplabs}!ames!jaw    (or jaw@riacs)