README
1# $OpenBSD: README,v 1.4 2004/03/30 17:14:11 jmc Exp $
2
3# @(#)README 8.1 (Berkeley) 6/6/93
4
5--------------------------------------------------------------------
6FILES and subdirectories of /usr/share/dict:
7
8 words -- common words, and important technical terms from all
9 fields, that are spelled the same in British and American usage.
10 web2 -- Webster's Second International Dictionary, all 234,936 words
11 worth. The 1934 copyright has lapsed.
12 web2a -- hyphenated terms as well as assorted noun and adverbial phrases
13 from Webster's Second International Dictionary.
14 propernames -- List of proper names, also from Webster's Second
15 International Dictionary.
16 american -- spellings preferred in American but not British usage.
17 british -- spellings preferred in British but not American usage.
18 stop -- forms that would otherwise be derivable by "spell" from
19 words in one of the above files, but should not be accepted.
20 README -- this file
21 papers/ -- an (out-of-date specialized) bibliographical database,
22 used as the default by the program "refer".
23 special/ -- directory of less common terms from specialized fields.
24 It presently contains:
25
26 special/4bsd -- commands and system calls (from filenames in
27 /usr/share/man/man[1238]), and builtin csh commands (named in
28 /usr/share/man/man1/csh.1) of the current version of 4bsd Unix.
29 (Supersedes old "/usr/src/usr.bin/spell/local".)
30 special/math -- some mathematical terms not in /usr/share/dict/words.
31
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33
34The subdirectory "special" contains lists of words in specialized fields,
35which may be hashed in with the regular lists on machines having many users
36working in these fields. As of this writing, there are two such specialized
37word lists, 4bsd and math (described briefly above).
38
39It is advised that system managers create a directory /usr/local/share/dict.
40This can be used to maintain files of particular interest to users of each
41machine (e.g., surnames of members of the department on a departmental
42machine). These files, potentially along with files in /usr/share/dict/special,
43should be placed in /usr/local/share/dict/words, which will be used by
44the spell program. The following example creates a local words list
45consisting of 4BSD commands and terms as well as local surnames and
46acronyms:
47
48 # sort -df /usr/share/dict/special/4bsd \
49 /usr/local/share/dict/surnames \
50 /usr/local/share/dict/acronyms > /usr/local/share/dict/words
51
52Note that word lists must be sorted in dictionary order and with case folded.
53In general this means they should be passed through "sort -df".
54Word lists that are not sorted in this way will not work properly
55with the spell and look commands since these perform binary searches
56on the word lists.
57