1 .TH DICT 7
2 .SH NAME
3 dict \- dictionary browser
4 .SH SYNOPSIS
5 .B dict
6 [
7 .B -k
8 ]
9 [
10 .B -d
11 .I dictname
12 ]
13 [
14 .B -c
15 .I command
16 ]
17 [
18 .I pattern
19 ]
20 .SH DESCRIPTION
21 .I Dict
22 is a dictionary browser.
23 If a
24 .I pattern
25 is given on the command line,
26 .I dict
27 prints all matching entries;
28 otherwise it repeatedly accepts and executes commands.
29 The options are
30 .TF -d\ \fIdictname\fP
31 .TP
32 .BI -d " dictname"
33 Use the given dictionary.
34 The default is
35 .BR oed ,
36 the second edition of the Oxford English Dictionary.
37 A list of available dictionaries is printed by option
38 .BR -d? .
39 .TP
40 .BI -c " command"
41 Execute one command and quit.
42 The command syntax is described below.
43 .TP
44 .B -k
45 Print a pronunciation key.
46 .PD
47 .PP
48 Patterns are regular expressions (see
49 .IR regexp (6)),
50 with an implicit leading
51 .L ^
52 and trailing
53 .LR $ .
54 Patterns are matched against an index of headwords and variants,
55 to form a `match set'.
56 By default, both patterns and the index are folded:
57 upper case characters are mapped into their lower case equivalents,
58 and Latin accented characters are mapped into their non-accented
59 equivalents.
60 In interactive mode, there is always a `current match set'
61 and a `current entry' within the match set.
62 Commands can change either or both, as well as print the entries
63 or information about them.
64 .PP
65 Commands have an address followed by a command letter.
66 Addresses have the form:
67 .TF /\fIre\fP/.\fIn\fP
68 .TP
69 .BI / re /
70 Set the match set to all entries matching the regular expression
71 .IR re ,
72 sorted in dictionary order.
73 Set the current entry to the first of the match set.
74 .TP
75 .BI ! re !
76 Like
77 .BI / re /
78 but use exact matching, i.e., without case and accent folding.
79 .TP
80 .I n
81 An integer
82 .I n
83 means change the current entry to the
84 .IR n th
85 of the current match set.
86 .TP
87 .BI # n
88 The integer
89 .I n
90 is an absolute byte offset into the raw dictionary.
91 (See the
92 .B A
93 command, below.)
94 .TP
95 .IB addr +
96 After setting the match set and current entry according to
97 .IR addr ,
98 change the match set and current entry to be the next entry
99 in the dictionary (not necessarily in the match set) after
100 the current entry.
101 .TP
102 .IB addr -
103 Like
104 .IB addr +
105 but go to previous dictionary entry.
106 .PD
107 .PP
108 The command letters come in pairs: a lower case and the
109 corresponding upper case letter.
110 The lower case version prints something about the current
111 entry only, and advances the current entry to the next
112 in the match set (wrapping around to the beginning after
113 the last).
114 The upper case version prints something about all of the
115 match set and resets the current entry to the beginning of
116 the set.
117 .TF \fLa,A\fP
118 .TP
119 .BR p , P
120 Print the whole entry.
121 .TP
122 .BR h , H
123 Print only the headword(s) of the entry.
124 .TP
125 .BR a , A
126 Print the dictionary byte offset of the entry.
127 .TP
128 .BR r , R
129 Print the whole entry in raw format (without translating
130 special characters, etc.).
131 .PD
132 .PP
133 If no command letter is given for the first command,
134 .B H
135 is assumed.
136 After an
137 .BR H ,
138 the default command is
139 .BR p .
140 Otherwise, the default command is the previous command.
141 .SH FILES
142 .B /lib/dict/oed2
143 .br
144 .B /lib/dict/oed2index
145 .br
146 Other files in
147 .BR /lib .
148 .SH "SEE ALSO"
149 .IR regexp (6)
150 .SH SOURCE
151 .B /usr/local/plan9/src/cmd/dict
152 .SH BUGS
153 A font with wide coverage of the Unicode Standard
154 should be used for best results.
155 (Try
156 .BR /lib/font/bit/pelm/unicode.9.font .)
157 .br
158 If the
159 .I pattern
160 doesn't begin with
161 a few literal characters, matching takes a long time.
162 .br
163 The dictionaries are not distributed outside Bell Labs.