[alt.sources] dictionary s/w w/ wildcard

reynolds@ssd.kodak.com (Jim Reynolds (37633)) (02/28/91)

     i've been looking for any software package (unix, dos, mac) that i could
     use simple wildcard operators against our english dictionary, or even
     less than that would be sufficient, ex: against a voluminous list of
     english words (definitions, synonyms, etc. not necessary) give me all
     words which have a double 'o'. pseudocommand might be: FIND *oo* or
     this one for example: FIND (all words which meet this criteria) *sh%t*
     where '*' is a wildcard depicting one or more letters & '%' one letter.
     i think u get the idea. any help? -JR-
-- 
reynolds@aviary.kodak.com ( Jim Reynolds )

ivan@megatest.UUCP (Ivan Batinic) (03/01/91)

	I'm not sure if this will suffice, but I have an alias called
'spell' which simply does 'grep !* /usr/dict/words' (I don't use the
spell subsystem, so I get away with this alias.  You can then do any
regular expression search:

	spell oo	/* find all words having oo
	spell "^req"	/* find all words begining with "req"

	etc...

	Hope that's good enough!

	Ivan
-- 
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
Email:	    {sun,decwrl,fortune,pyramid}!megatest!ivan
Disclaimer: All opinions expressed herein are my own, do not necessarily
	    reflect those of my employer, and, are quite possibly worthless.

root@ozdaltx.UUCP (root) (03/01/91)

Any of the grep (*NIX) family of programs will do this for you; grep,
egrep or fgrep.  Also, so will sed and awk.  All use the common wild
cards in the same context, so if one dosn't do what you wish - another
one will.
good luck-
Scotty
------
AIDS INFORMATION EXCHANGE BBS      (214) 247-2367/247-5609
               "Education is the best weapon"
{mic,void,egsner}!ozdaltx!sysop || {uunet,smu,ames}!sulaco!ozdaltx!sysop