Re: Dictionary Programs?

Pablo David Flores sikyal:

> I took up an idea proposed by Peter Clark and tried
> a system based on the MDF tags (used by a program
> named Shoebox). You write your dictionary in a plain
> text file, with a format that looks like this:
>
>     \lx dadam
>     \ps adj
>     \de round, rounded; spherical
>     \xv Oinech dadamade
>     \xe The earth is round
>
> There are a lot of tags, each with a different meaning.
> IMHO it's better than a database, because you can use
> as many or as few tags as you like, without having to
> leave "null" fields. Then my program takes this file,
> sorts it alphabetically (or by whatever criterion) and
> produces an HTML dictionary file, formatting each tag
> as specified in the code. It's written in Python, which
> is available and free for Linux and Windows.
This, I should point out, is exactly what my dictionary program does. My
script is written in perl, however, and is integrated into a cgi script at
http://students.washington.edu/jaspax/scripts/lex.cgi. The current
formatting is pretty bland, but it's enough to read, and it's a very
simple matter to change it.

>
> A dictionary of Senu Yivokuchi produced this way is online:
>   http://www.angelfire.com/scifi2/nyh/lng/dictionary.html
>
>
> --Pablo Flores
>   Not Yet History -- Time prospection at
>   http://www.angelfire.com/scifi2/nyh/
>
Jesse S. Bangs jaspax@u.washington.edu
http://students.washington.edu/jaspax/

"If you look at a thing nine hundred and ninety-nine times, you are
perfectly safe; if you look at it the thousandth time, you are in
frightful danger of seeing it for the first time."
--G.K. Chesterton