Reverse wordlist perl script

I have written a small perl script for reversing a wordlist -- e.g. turning
a Swedish-English wordlist into a English-Swedish wordlist, **not** a
reverse-alphabetically sorted list (tho I might write that script someday
too! :-)  The script handles multiple glosses and synonyms correctly, which
is what I wanted it for (database applications can't do that...)

I hope someone finds it useful!  It requires perl 5, BTW.

#! /usr/bin/perl -w

# Make a reverse word list: heads and glosses are separated by tabs,
# alternative glosses are separated by comma+space. Like this:
#
# apa   ape, monkey
# skog  wood, forest
# trä   wood
#
# which should be turned into:
#
# ape   apa
# forest        skog
# monkey        apa
# wood  skog, trä
#

# (c) BP Jonsson, bpj@netg.se, August -01

open(IN, 'wordlist.txt');
open(OUT, '>reverselist.txt');

# Initialize the hash to hold the reverse list
%revlist = ();

while(<IN>){
    chomp;

    # make sure each comma is followed by exactly one space
    s/, */,/g;  s/,/, /g;

    # split words from glosses at the tab
    ($word,$glosses) = split(/\t/,$_);
    # split the glosses into a list
    @glosses = split(/, /,$glosses);

    # go thru the glosses
    foreach $g (@glosses){
        if($g ne ''){  # make sure the gloss isn't empty!
            unless(exists($revlist{$g})){$revlist{$g} =$word}
            else{
                # add the new word to the value of the entry
                $val = $revlist{$g};
                $val = "$val, $word";
                $revlist{$g} = $val;
            }
        }
    }
}

foreach $key (sort(keys(%revlist))){
    print OUT "$key\t$revlist{$key}\n"
}

__END__

/BP 8^)>
--
B.Philip Jonsson mailto:bpX@netg.se (delete X)
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