John writes:

> Just to clarify the question: I am looking for a spell checker to be
>  utilized by application programs to check user input to our system.

Writing the spell checker isn't all that hard. It's building the dictionary
that takes all of the time. For your use, if you wish to use it, I have just
put up a copy of a dictionary in IMAGE database format on our exposed HP3000,
which you can FTP directly into and transfer directly to your machine.

To get at the dictionary, telnet to 67.41.4.238 and sign on as:

     :hello lex.icon

You will find there an IMAGE database, WORDSP (password: READER), and the
schema to the database, WORDSCH. There are 351,000 words in the dictionary,
including plurals, participles, etc. I built this database sometime ago in
preparation for a future product for the HP3000 that will now almost
certainly never happen. It would be good if found some use, however.

If you do write your own spell checker -- and it isn't hard -- all you really
need to do is a simple DBFIND into the words' master dataset, MASTERSET. If
the word you're looking for isn't there, it's probably misspelled. Otherwise,
if you get a hit, you just go on to the next word.

Wirt Atmar

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