spell(1) spell(1)
NAME
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.
Copyright 1994 Novell, Inc. Page 1
spell(1) spell(1)
-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.
Copyright 1994 Novell, Inc. Page 2
spell(1) spell(1)
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
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.
REFERENCES
deroff(1BSD), eqn(1BSD), sed(1), sort(1), tbl(1BSD), tee(1),
troff(1BSD)
Copyright 1994 Novell, Inc. Page 3