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TSCHEK.NWS
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1991-09-29
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Sun 29-Sep-91: I have updated my Unix like spelling checker. It is
now available as garbo.uwasa.fi:/pc/ts/tschek14.arc. Bob Hardy
hardy@lucid.com kindly provided me with his own version of the
dictionary, and I have added words from it to my own with Bob's
permission. He also suggested a clarification of the error message
if spell detects the dictionary being out of order. It now indicates
the offending space in the dictionary.
If you are a user of SemWare's QEdit editor /pc/editor/
qedit215.zip you'll be interested in /pc/ts/tsqed12.arc. Among other
things it contains a macro to do the spelling checking from within
the editor. You'll also need Buerg's list facility /pc/fileutil/
list76b.zip to fully utilize QEdit feature.
Mon 19-Aug-91: I had some very useful feedback on my Unix-like
spelling checker SPELL from tygra!dave@sharkey.cc.umich.edu (David
Conrad). I have updated the relevant spelling checker package to now
be /pc/ts/tschek13.arc. Among other things David pointed out that
correct words like shouldn't don't etc should be found correct also
by the checker. Furthermore, he suggested that the checker should be
able to take words from several dictionaries at the same time.
With some simple batch programming SPELL.EXE already has the
latter capability, that is it can apply several dictionaries on the
same text simultaneously. This feature can be utilized to solve also
the first problem by using a second dictionary having items like
shouldn, don, etc in it. I have started an auxiliary dictionary for
this purpose and called it short.dny. I've put in some abbreviations
like mon, tue, and wed in there as well. I have also added a batch
SPL2.BAT to use two dictionaries on a single text file. Before you
use it, you'll have to adapt it to your own paths.
At David's advice I have also removed a number of incorrect words
from the main dictionary SPELLED3.DNY.
No changes have been made to the SPELL.EXE program itself in this
update.
Hint: If you wish to add your own words in the dictionaries use
SPELLED.EXE from /pc/ts/tspell24.arc.
Sat 20-Apr-91: I have released /pc/ts/tschek12.arc, an update of my
spell.exe spelling checker which lists the those words of your ascii
text file which it cannot find in the user's own (or the
accompanying) dictionary.
Michael Sanders (thanks for the feedback Michael) pointed out to
me that there was a bug in spell's ability to take piped input. This
has been remedied. Now you will be able to use the following kind
of piped calls of spell:
type YourText | spell spelled3.dny con /b > YourOutputFile
Tip: You can use spell also for instant checking of your spelling.
For example use
spell spelled3.dny con
recomend
recommend
^Z
The suspect word(s) will be listed.
Other improvements:
- Added new words to the accompanying dictionary.
- Included a new option (switch /f) for counting the frequency of
each "offending" word.
- The number of words checked is given (unless the /b switch is on).
Sat 6-Apr-91: I have updated my Unix-like spelling checker which
lists those words of your textfile which are not found in the
accompanying dictionary. It is now available from our archives as
/pc/ts/tschek11.arc. Some of the new features of the update:
- The program is about one third faster.
- There are more words in the accompanying ascii dictionary.
- Overly long rows in your text files are only skipped. The
reading is not terminated as in the previous version.
- Elapsed run time is given at the end of the execution.
- Switch /b (batch) turns off the header and the footer.
- The double empty line on the screen when directing the output to
a file has been corrected.
Spell has been programmed with Turbo Pascal 5.0. Checking spelling
involves tasks that are very time consuming, and much careful code
writing is required to make a spelling checker fast. These include
the procedures for making a list of the different words of the file
to be checked, sorting it, and comparing it the words in the
dictionary file. I have gradually improved on these routines through
many versions of another, screen oriented spelling checker of mine.
Nevertheless, I used Turbo profiler to find further bottle-necks of
the code, and could improve on two of the critical parts in the
present code. As an example checking the spelling of a 150 page text
with a 13000 word dictionary now takes under two minutes on my 386.
Although I am not a linguist, let me explain about dictionaries
based on practical experience. A dictionary of 10000-20000 words
might seem small to you, but it is not. When you write, the number
of _different_ words is quite small. Try out some long text of yours
with a word frequency counter (you'll find one in tspell24.arc). The
figure you get will probably be a surprise to you. This means that
with a good selection of words in your dictionary adapted to your
own special field and writing style need not be large. The
dictionary accompanying tscheck11.arc is inclined towards a computer
user's terminology, business economics, mathematics, statistics, and
my own writing style.
Even if I also enjoy writing programs, this one has risen solely
from my own practical needs. I wanted a method for a quick and
easy-to-use checking of the spelling of my ascii files on a PC.
Sat 30-Mar-91: I have just updated my screen oriented spelling
checker /pc/ts/tspell##.arc (## = 24 at the time of writing this)
which displays a text file highlighting the mis-spelled words.
Having lately used much also a Unix spell, which instead gives an
alphabetical list of the mis-spelled words, I wanted a similar
utility for MsDos. So, as usual, I decided to write one myself.
Naturally I called it spell.exe and it is available as
/pc/ts/tschek10.arc. Its contents:
TSCHEK10.ARC Unix-like spell by Timo Salmi
Filename Comment
-------- --------------------------------
SPELL.EXE Unix-like spelling checker
SPELLED3.DNY Dictionary
SPL.BAT A simple batch to drive spell
TSCHEK.NWS News announcements about tschek
TSPROG.INF List of PD programs from T.Salmi
VAASA.INF Info: Finland, Vaasa, U of Vaasa
---- ------ ------ -----
The usage is: SPELL DictionaryFile InputFile [OutputFile]. Spell
lists in alphabetical order all the words of the input file which it
cannot find in the dictionary file. The checking is automatically
done in lower case so the system is case-independent. All words
longer than 25 characters are truncated.
If you omit the OutputFile, the output comes to the screen and
can be redirected (e.g. through more or list).
If you use your own, larger dictionary, it must be in a lower
case and in a strict alphabetical order. The ability to use your own
dictionary means that you can use spell.exe also for languages other
than English.
There is a very simple batch spl.bat to call spell. Configure it
to suit your own paths. Using a batch is convenient, since then you
don't have to type the name of the dictionary each time. If you have
several dictionaries, you might even have a batch for each one. The
list command used in the batch is refers to list75f.zip, that is
Vernon Buerg's well-known list program. If you don't have it,
replace list /s simply with MsDos more command (or whatever browser
you have at your disposal).
The maximum number of _different_ words that spell.exe can handle
is 8000. This practically means an unlimited size, since it is
extremely rare that a normal text has such a number of different
words. (Checking another dictionary with spell.exe is the only case
I can think of where the limitation would become effective in actual
practice).
The size of the dictionary for a registered version is unlimited.
For the distributed PD version the maximum dictionary size is 20000
words.
The rules of usage are: This package may be used and distributed
freely for NON-COMMERCIAL, NON-INSTITUTIONAL, PRIVATE purposes,
provi