SPELL(1)                             SysV                             SPELL(1)



NAME
     spell, hashmake, spellin, hashcheck - find spelling errors

SYNOPSIS
     spell [ -v ] [ -b ] [ -x ] [ -l ] [ +local_file ] [ files ]

     /usr/lib/spell/hashmake

     /usr/lib/spell/spellin n

     /usr/lib/spell/hashcheck spelling_list

DESCRIPTION
     spell collects words from the named files and looks them up in a spelling
     list.  Words that neither occur among nor are derivable (by applying
     certain inflections, prefixes, and/or suffixes) from words in the
     spelling list are printed on the standard output.  If no files are named,
     words are collected from the standard input.

     spell ignores most troff(1), tbl(1), and eqn(1) constructions.

     Under the -v option, all words not literally in the spelling list are
     printed, and plausible derivations from the words in the spelling list
     are indicated.

     Under the -b option, British spelling is checked.  Besides preferring
     centre, colour, programme, speciality, travelled, etc., this option
     insists upon -ise in words like standardise, Fowler and the OED to the
     contrary notwithstanding.

     Under the -x option, every plausible stem is printed with = for each
     word.

     By default, spell (like deroff(1)) follows chains of included files (.so
     and .nx troff(1) requests), unless the names of such included files begin
     with /usr/lib.  Under the -l option, spell will follow the chains of all
     included files.

     Under the +local_file option, words found in local_file are removed from
     spell's output.  Local_file is the name of a user-provided file that
     contains a sorted list of words, one per line.  With this option, the
     user can specify a set of words that are correct spellings (in addition
     to spell's own spelling list) for each job.

     The spelling list is based on many sources, and while more haphazard than
     an ordinary dictionary, is also more effective with respect to proper
     names and popular technical words.  Coverage of the specialized
     vocabularies of biology, medicine, and chemistry is light.

     Pertinent auxiliary files may be specified by name arguments, indicated
     below with their default settings (see FILES).  Copies of all output are
     accumulated in the history file.  The stop list filters out misspellings
     (e.g., thier=thy-y+ier) that would otherwise pass.

     Three routines help maintain and check the hash lists used by spell:

     hashmake    Reads a list of words from the standard input and writes the
                 corresponding nine-digit hash code on the standard output.

     spellin     Reads n hash codes from the standard input and writes a
                 compressed spelling list on the standard output.

     hashcheck   Reads a compressed spelling_list and recreates the nine-digit
                 hash codes for all the words in it; it writes these codes on
                 the standard output.

FILES
     D_SPELL=/usr/lib/spell/hlist[ab]   hashed spelling lists, American &
                                        British
     S_SPELL=/usr/lib/spell/hstop       hashed stop list
     H_SPELL=/usr/lib/spell/spellhist   history file
     /usr/lib/spell/spellprog           program

SEE ALSO
     deroff(1), sed(1), sort(1), tee(1).
     eqn(1), tbl(1), troff(1) in the DOCUMENTER'S WORKBENCH Software 2.0
     Technical Discussion and Reference Manual.

BUGS
     The spelling list's coverage is uneven; new installations will probably
     wish 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.