spell(1)spell(1)Name
spell, spellin, spellout - check text for spelling errors
Syntaxspell [-v] [-b] [-x] [-d hlist] [+local-file] [-s hstop] [-h spellhist]
[file...]
spellin [list]
spellout [-d] list
Description
The command collects words from the named documents, and looks them up
in a spelling list. Words that are not on the spelling list and are
not derivable from words on the list (by applying certain inflections,
prefixes or suffixes) are printed on the standard output. If no files
are specified, words are collected from the standard input.
The command ignores most and constructions.
Two routines help maintain the hash lists used by Both expect a set of
words, one per line, from the standard input. The command combines the
words from the standard input and the preexisting list file and places
a new list on the standard output. If no list file is specified, a new
list is generated. The command looks up each word from the standard
input and prints on the standard output those that are missing from (or
present on, with option -d) the hashed list file. For example, to ver‐
ify that hookey is not on the default spelling list, add it to your own
private list, and then use it with
echo hookey | spellout /usr/dict/hlista
echo hookey | spellin /usr/dict/hlista > myhlist
spell-d myhlist <filename>
Options-v Displays words not found in spelling list with all plau‐
sible derivations from spelling list.
-b Checks data according to British spelling. Besides pre‐
ferring centre, colour, speciality, travelled, this
option insists upon -ise instead of -ize in words like
standardise.
-x Precedes each word with an equal sign (=) and displays
all plausible derivations.
-d hlist Specifies the file used for the spelling list.
-h spellhist Specifies the file used as the history file.
-s hstop Specifies the file used for the stop list.
+local-file Removes words found in local-file from the output of the
command. The argument local-file is the name of a file
provided by the user that contains a sorted list of
words, one per line. With this option, the user can
specify a list of words for a particular job that are
spelled correctly.
The auxiliary files used for the spelling list, stop list, and history
file may be specified by arguments following the -d, -s, and -h
options. The default files are indicated below. Copies of all output
may be accumulated in the history file. The stop list filters out mis‐
spellings (for example, thier=thy-y+ier) that would otherwise pass.
Restrictions
The coverage of the spelling list is uneven; new installations will
probably wish to monitor the output for several months to gather local
additions.
The command works only with ASCII text files.
Files
/usr/dict/hlist[ab] hashed spelling lists, American &
British, default for -d
/usr/dict/hstop hashed stop list, default for -s
/dev/null history file, default for -h
/tmp/spell.$$∗ temporary files
/usr/lib/spell
See Alsoderoff(1), sed(1), sort(1), tee(1)spell(1)