spell(1)                                                           User Commands                                                          spell(1)

NAME

       spell, hashmake, spellin, hashcheck - report spelling errors

SYNOPSIS

       spell [-bilvx] [ + local_file] [file] ...

       /usr/lib/spell/hashmake

       /usr/lib/spell/spellin n

       /usr/lib/spell/hashcheck spelling_list

DESCRIPTION

       The  spell  command collects words from the named files and looks them up in a spelling list. Words that neither occur among nor are deriv-
       able (by applying certain inflections, prefixes, or suffixes) from words in the spelling list are written to the standard output.

       If there are no file arguments, words to check are collected from the standard input. spell ignores most troff(1), tbl(1), and eqn(1)  con-
       structs. Copies of all output words are accumulated in the history file (spellhist), and a stop list filters out misspellings (for example,
       their=thy-y+ier) that would otherwise pass.

       By default, spell (like deroff(1)) follows chains of included files (.so and .nx troff(1) requests), unless  the  names  of  such  included
       files begin with /usr/lib.

       The  standard  spelling  list  is  based  on  many sources, and while more haphazard than an ordinary dictionary, is also more effective in
       respect to proper names and popular technical words. Coverage of the specialized vocabularies of biology, medicine and chemistry is light.

       Three programs 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.

       spellin         Reads n hash codes from the standard input and writes a compressed spelling list on the standard output.

       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.

OPTIONS

       The following options are supported:

       -b              Check  British spelling. Besides preferring "centre,"  "colour," "programme," "speciality," "travelled," and so forth, this
                       option insists upon -ise in words like "standardise."

       -i              Cause  deroff(1) to ignore .so and .nx commands.  If deroff(1) is not present on the system, then this  option is ignored.

       -l              Follow the chains of all included files.

       -v              Print all words not literally in the spelling list, as well as plausible derivations from the  words in the spelling list.

       -x              Print every plausible stem, one per line, with = preceding each word.

       +local_file     Specify a set of words that are correct spellings (in addition to spell's own spelling list) for each  job.  local_file  is
                       the  name of a user-provided file that contains a sorted list of words, one per line. Words found in local_file are removed
                       from spell's output. Use sort(1) to order local_file in ASCII collating sequence. If this ordering is  not  followed,  some
                       entries in local_file may be ignored.

OPERANDS

       The following operands are supported:

       file     A path name of a text file to check for spelling errors. If no files are named, words are collected from the standard input.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

       See  environ(5)  for  descriptions  of  the  following environment variables that affect the execution of spell: LC_CTYPE, LC_MESSAGES, and
       NLSPATH.

EXIT STATUS

       The following exit values are returned:

       0        Successful completion.

       >0       An error occurred.

FILES

       D_SPELL=/usr/lib/spell/hlist[ab]        hashed spelling lists, American & British

       S_SPELL=/usr/lib/spell/hstop            hashed stop list

       H_SPELL=/var/adm/spellhist              history file

       /usr/share/lib/dict/words               master dictionary

ATTRIBUTES

       See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:

       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
       |      ATTRIBUTE TYPE         |      ATTRIBUTE VALUE        |
       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
       |Availability                 |SUNWesu                      |
       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+

SEE ALSO

       deroff(1), eqn(1), sort(1), tbl(1), troff(1), attributes(5), environ(5)

NOTES

       Misspelled words can be monitored by default by setting the H_SPELL variable in /usr/bin/spell to the name of a file  that  has  permission
       mode 666.

       spell works only on English words defined in the U.S. ASCII codeset.

       Because copies of all output are accumulated in the spellhist file,  spellhist may grow quite large and require purging.

BUGS

       The spelling list's coverage is uneven; new installations may wish to monitor the output for several months to gather local additions.

       British spelling was done by an American.

SunOS 5.10                                                          14 Dec 1995                                                           spell(1)