spell.1 (2010 09)
s
spell(1) spell(1)
EXAMPLES
To check spelling of a single word:
echo word | spell
If word is spelled correctly, a prompt is returned. If it is spelled incorrectly, word is printed before the
prompt is returned. To check spelling of multiple words, they can also be typed as a group on the same
command line:
echo worda wordb wordc ... | spell
To create a personal spelling list that incorporates the words already present in the default American
spelling list file
/usr/share/dict/hlista
:
cat /usr/share/dict/hlista | /usr/lbin/spell/hashcheck >tmp1
/usr/lbin/spell/hashmake <addwds >>tmp1
sort -u -o tmp1 tmp1
/usr/lbin/spell/spellin ‘wc -l <tmp1‘ <tmp1 >hlista
To modify the default British spelling list file
/usr/share/dict/hlistb
, replace all occurrences of
hlista with hlistb in the above example.
To add words to the default spelling list, change login to
root, change the current working directory to
/usr/share/dict and execute the commands listed in the above example.
WARNINGS
The spelling list’s coverage is uneven. When undertaking the use of
spell
as a new tool, it may be
advisable to monitor the output for several months to gather local additions. Typically, these are kept in
a separate local file that is added to the hashed spelling_list via
spellin, as shown above.
The British spelling feature was developed by an American.
Start-up versions of files
hlista, hlistb, and hstop are available in directory
/usr/newconfig/usr/share/dict
. If these files or a suitable equivalent are not present in direc-
tory
/usr/share/dict
, spell complains:
spell: cannot initialize hash table
spell: cannot initialize hash table
The spell command is likely to be withdrawn from X/Open standards. Applications using this com-
mand might not be portable to other vendors’ systems.
FILES
/usr/share/dict/hlist
[ab] Hashed spelling lists, American and British.
/usr/share/dict/hstop
Hashed stop list.
/var/adm/spellhist
History file.
/usr/lbin/spell/spellprog
Executable program file.
SEE ALSO
deroff(1), sed(1), sort(1), tbl(1), tee(1).
STANDARDS CONFORMANCE
spell: SVID2, SVID3, XPG2, XPG3
2 Hewlett-Packard Company − 2 − HP-UX 11i Version 3: September 2010