spell - Detect spelling errors in files

Description

spell checks for misspelled words in each specified file. If you do not specify a file, it checks the standard input. A list of potentially misspelled words is produced on standard output.

Words are checked against a local word list and then against a hashed word list. The hashed word list included in this distribution contains virtually no proper names or technical terms. It is assumed that you will enter these words into your local word list (or into your machine's word list). Any capitalized word in the hash list must be capitalized in the input document; all other words are matched either capitalized or not. All word forms, including plurals, must be explicitly included in the hash list. This approach prevents the acceptance of nonsense words that can result from the algorithmic combination of legal roots with legal suffixes or prefixes, a phenomenon common to many other spelling checkers.

Options

-b

Uses British spelling (such as colour instead of color). The dictionary file used is /usr/lib/hashb instead of /usr/lib/hashb.

-d hashfile

Uses hashfile as the dictionary. hashfile is a hash list produced from a list of words using the -i option of spell. To use a list other than the default /usr/lib/hashb, the -d option must be specified.

-f local

Uses the file local as a dictionary of local words, given one word per line. If you do not specify this option, the file /usr/lib/lwords is used as the local dictionary.

-h history

Appends a history of all misspelled words to the file history. This file can be used by a system administrator for dictionary maintenance or generating a local dictionary.

-i

Creates a new hash list file or add words to an existing file, instead of checking for spelling errors. Words to be entered into the dictionary should be specified one per line with no white space on the line. Lines beginning with the # character are ignored as comments. Be sure that the words you are entering into the hash list are correctly spelled.

-l

Produces a longer form of output. For each misspelled word, spell prints three tab-separated columns containing the misspelled word, the line number, and the file name.

-u

Forces spell to accept any word that is in all uppercase. spell assumes that such words are acronyms.

-v

Writes to stdout all words not literally in the dictionary. This is the default for this implementation because it doesn't apply suffix/prefix rules to derive words.

-x

Writes each plausible word stem to stdout. Because this implementation of spell doesn't derive words, all words are their own word stems.

+ local

Uses the file local as a dictionary of local words, given one word per line. This is synonymous with -f.

Localization

Exit values

0

Successful completion

1

Failure due to any of the following:

• Missing hashfile name after -d.
• Missing history file name after -h.
• Missing local file name after -f.
• Inability to open the local file
• Receipt of user interrupt
• An error reading the dictionary file

A spelling mistake is not considered an error.

2

Incorrect command-line option

Files

Limits

Input lines in the text being checked are restricted to a maximum of 100 characters.

Portability

X/Open Portability Guide, UNIX systems.

The -d, -f, -h, -i, -l, and -u options are extensions of the POSIX standard.

Related information

sort, vi