xref: /original-bsd/usr.bin/spell/spell.1 (revision e58c8952)
1.\" Copyright (c) 1985, 1993, 1994
2.\"	The Regents of the University of California.  All rights reserved.
3.\"
4.\" %sccs.include.proprietary.roff%
5.\"
6.\"	@(#)spell.1	8.2 (Berkeley) 04/18/94
7.\"
8.Dd
9.Dt SPELL 1
10.Os ATT 7th
11.Sh NAME
12.Nm spell ,
13.Nm spellin ,
14.Nm spellout
15.Nd find spelling errors
16.Sh SYNOPSIS
17.Nm spell
18.Op Fl v
19.Op Fl b
20.Op Fl x
21.Op Fl d Ar hlist
22.Op Fl s Ar hstop
23.Op Fl h Ar spellhist
24.Op Ar file
25.Ar ...
26.Nm spellin
27.Op Ar list
28.Nm spellout
29.Op Fl d
30Ar list
31.Sh DESCRIPTION
32.Nm Spell
33collects words from the named documents,
34and looks them up in a spelling list.
35Words that neither occur among nor are derivable
36(by applying certain inflections,
37prefixes or suffixes) from words in the spelling list
38are printed on the standard output.
39If no files are named,
40words are collected from the standard input.
41.Pp
42.Nm Spell
43ignores most
44.Xr troff 1 ,
45.Xr tbl 1
46and
47.Xr eqn 1
48constructions.
49.Pp
50Under the
51.Fl v
52option, all words not literally in the spelling list are printed,
53and plausible derivations from spelling list words are indicated.
54.Pp
55Under the
56.Fl b
57option, British spelling is checked.
58Besides preferring
59.Em centre , colour , speciality , travelled ,
60etc.,
61this option insists upon
62.Fl ise
63in words like
64.Em standardise,
65Fowler and the OED to the contrary notwithstanding.
66.Pp
67Under the
68.Fl x
69option, every plausible stem is printed with `=' for each word.
70.Pp
71The spelling list is based on many sources.
72While it is more haphazard than an ordinary
73dictionary, it is also more effective with
74proper names and popular technical words.
75Coverage of
76the specialized vocabularies of biology,
77medicine and chemistry is light.
78.Pp
79The auxiliary files used for the spelling list,
80stop list, and history file may be specified by
81arguments following the
82.Fl d ,
83.Fl s ,
84and
85.Fl h
86options.
87The default files are indicated below.
88Copies of all output
89may be accumulated in the history file.
90The stop list filters out misspellings (e.g. thier=thy\-y+ier)
91that would otherwise pass.
92.Pp
93Two routines help maintain the hash lists used by
94.Nm spell.
95Both expect a set of words, one per line,
96from the standard input.
97.Nm Spellin
98combines the words from the standard input and the
99preexisting
100.Ar list
101file and places a new list on the standard output.
102If no
103.Ar list
104file is specified, the new list is created from scratch.
105.Nm Spellout
106looks up each word from the standard input and prints
107on the standard output
108those that are missing from (or present on, with
109option
110.Fl d )
111the hashed
112.Ar list
113file.
114For example, to verify that
115.Em hookey
116is not on the default spelling list, add it to your own
117private list, and then use it with
118.Nm spell ,
119.Pp
120.Bd -literal -offset indent -compact
121echo  hookey  |  spellout  /usr/share/dict/hlista
122echo  hookey  |  spellin  /usr/share/dict/hlista  >  myhlist
123spell  \-d  myhlist  huckfinn
124.Ed
125.Sh FILES
126.Bl -tag -width /usr/dict/hlist[ab]xx -compact
127.It Pa /usr/dict/hlist[ab]
128Hashed spelling lists, American & British, default for
129.Fl d .
130.It Pa /usr/dict/hstop
131Hashed stop list, default for
132.Fl s .
133.It Pa /dev/null
134History file, default for
135.Fl h .
136.It Pa /tmp/spell.$$\(**
137Temporary files.
138.It Pa /usr/libexec/spell
139Binary executed by the shell script
140.Pa /usr/bin/spell .
141.El
142.Sh SEE ALSO
143.Xr deroff 1 ,
144.Xr sort 1 ,
145.Xr tee 1 ,
146.Xr sed 1
147.Sh BUGS
148The spelling list's coverage is uneven;
149new installations will probably wish to
150monitor the output for several months to gather
151local additions.
152.Pp
153British spelling was done by an American.
154.Sh HISTORY
155The
156.Nm spell
157command appeared in
158.At v6 .
159