Re: Awgs dictionary format

[nathan@cco.caltech.edu (Nathan Mates)]

In article <3gjrf2$6jn@news.mel.labtam.net.au>,
Philip Stephens <philip@labtam.oz.au> wrote:
>Nathan Fisher writes:

>>I'd personally like to know the format so I can utilize my Appleworks
>>dictionary in my own programs.

>  I'd love to know this too...I've written a program that generates
>crosswords that I'd like to port to GS, and I thought using the
>Appleworks dictionary would be interesting...particularly since it
>has definitions as well as the word list (at least, when used as a
>thesaurus).  I'm talking about Appleworks GS here, of course.

   Most dictionary files are supplied by major dictionary companies,
and are therefore copyrighted and such. Also, they are usually
compressd in a highly proprietary format and such for maximum
compression and max speed on access later. I don't think you're going
to get any spell checker with a compressed dictionary to tell you how
to hack at their dictionary.

   A better solution is to get on a unix system, and take a look at
/usr/dict/words. On the system here, it's got 25,000 words; others
have lots more. For even more stuff, if there are any resident 'crack'
(password cracker, not cocaine :) users, I've heard that there are ftp
sites with huge dictionaries for almost all major languages. Posting
the ftp site might be a nice thing.

Nathan Mates
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