spell(1) [plan9 man page]
SPELL(1) General Commands Manual SPELL(1) NAME
spell, sprog - find spelling errors SYNOPSIS
spell [ options ] ... [ file ] ... sprog [ options ] [ -f file ] DESCRIPTION
Spell looks up words from the named files (standard input default) in a spelling list and places possible misspellings--words not sanc- tioned there--on the standard output. Spell ignores constructs of troff(1) and its standard preprocessors. It understands these options: -a Label each line of output with its address in the input, in the notation of acme(1) and sam(1). -b Check British spelling. -v Print all words not literally in the spelling list, with derivations. -x Print, marked with every stem as it is looked up in the spelling list, along with its affix classes. As a matter of policy, spell does not admit multiple spellings of the same word. Variants that follow general rules are preferred over those that don't, even when the unruly spelling is more common. Thus, in American usage, `modelled', `sizeable', and `judgment' are rejected in favor of `modeled', `sizable', and `judgement'. Agglutinated variants are shunned: `crewmember' and `backyard' cede to `crew member' and `back yard' (noun) or `back-yard' (adjective). FILES
/sys/lib/amspell American spelling list /sys/lib/brspell British spelling list /bin/aux/sprog The actual spelling checker. It expects one word per line on standard input, and takes the same arguments as spell. SOURCE
/rc/bin/spell the script /sys/src/cmd/spell source for sprog SEE ALSO
deroff(1) BUGS
The heuristics of deroff(1) used to excise formatting information are imperfect. The spelling list's coverage is uneven; in particular biology, medicine, and chemistry, and perforce proper names, not to mention languages other than English, are covered very lightly. SPELL(1)
Check Out this Related Man Page
SPELL(1) General Commands Manual SPELL(1) NAME
spell, spellin, spellout - find spelling errors SYNOPSIS
spell [ -v ] [ -b ] [ -x ] [ -d hlist ] [ -s hstop ] [ -h spellhist ] [ file ] ... spellin [ list ] spellout [ -d ] list DESCRIPTION
Spell collects words from the named documents, and looks them up in a spelling list. Words that neither occur among nor are derivable (by applying certain inflections, prefixes 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(1) constructions. Under the -v option, all words not literally in the spelling list are printed, and plausible derivations from spelling list words are indi- cated. Under the -b option, British spelling is checked. Besides preferring centre, colour, speciality, travelled, etc., this option insists upon -ise in words like standardise, Fowler and the OED to the contrary notwithstanding. Under the -x option, every plausible stem is printed with `=' for each word. The spelling list is based on many sources. While it is more haphazard than an ordinary dictionary, it is also more effective with proper names and popular technical words. Coverage of the specialized vocabularies of biology, medicine and chemistry is light. The auxiliary files used for the spelling list, stop list, and history file may be specified by arguments following the -d, -s, and -h options. The default files are indicated below. Copies of all output may be accumulated in the history file. The stop list filters out misspellings (e.g. thier=thy-y+ier) that would otherwise pass. Two routines help maintain the hash lists used by spell. Both expect a set of words, one per line, from the standard input. Spellin com- bines the words from the standard input and the preexisting list file and places a new list on the standard output. If no list file is specified, the new list is created from scratch. Spellout looks up each word from the standard input and prints on the standard output those that are missing from (or present on, with option -d) the hashed list file. For example, to verify that hookey is not on the default spelling list, add it to your own private list, and then use it with spell, echo hookey | spellout /usr/dict/hlista echo hookey | spellin /usr/dict/hlista > myhlist spell -d myhlist huckfinn FILES
/usr/dict/hlist[ab] hashed spelling lists, American & British, default for -d /usr/dict/hstop hashed stop list, default for -s /dev/null history file, default for -h /tmp/spell.$$* temporary files /usr/libexec/spell SEE ALSO
deroff(1), sort(1), tee(1), sed(1) BUGS
The spelling list's coverage is uneven; new installations will probably wish to monitor the output for several months to gather local addi- tions. British spelling was done by an American. 7th Edition October 22, 1996 SPELL(1)