glenn@heaven.woodside.ca.us (Glenn Reid) (05/08/91)
In my never-ending quest for disk space, I discovered, in addition to the
traditional /usr/dict/words file (which I think I'll keep), there are two
more files in /usr/dict named "web2" and "web2a", that weight in collectively
at about 4Mb. The creation date is back in 1985, which leads me to believe
that they might be vestigial, but on the other hand, their names are
similar to "Webster", and I wondered if "Webster" the application uses
them somehow.
Anybody know what "web2" and "web2a" are, and what would break if I
deleted them?
--
Glenn Reid RightBrain Software
glenn@heaven.woodside.ca.us NeXT/PostScript developers
..{adobe,next}!heaven!glenn 415-326-2974 (NeXTfax 326-2977)lane@CAMIS.STANFORD.EDU (Christopher D. Lane) (05/08/91)
> Anybody know what "web2" and "web2a" are, and what would break if I > deleted them? The non extended NeXT 2.0 release (aka the 105MB subset) does not include them although it does include a working Webster (subset) application. So apparently, they aren't 'critical' in NeXT's eyes! - Christopher PS: The /usr/dict/words file is in the 105MB subset and should probably be kept around.
jbn35564@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (J.B. Nicholson) (05/08/91)
In <494@heaven.woodside.ca.us> glenn@heaven.woodside.ca.us (Glenn Reid) writes: >Anybody know what "web2" and "web2a" are, and what would break if I >deleted them? > >-- > Glenn Reid RightBrain Software > glenn@heaven.woodside.ca.us NeXT/PostScript developers > ..{adobe,next}!heaven!glenn 415-326-2974 (NeXTfax 326-2977) Perhaps renaming them and running the application that they look like they belong to (Webster) would show you if (at least) Webster will break? I don't know how (of if) Webster would sense such a change, but it's worth a shot. Jeff -- jeffo@uiuc.edu
wgilbert@fatou.UWaterloo.ca (William Gilbert) (05/08/91)
In article <1991May8.043434.29011@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> jeffo@uiuc.edu writes: >In <494@heaven.woodside.ca.us> glenn@heaven.woodside.ca.us (Glenn Reid) writes: > >>Anybody know what "web2" and "web2a" are, and what would break if I >>deleted them? >> >Perhaps renaming them and running the application that they look like >they belong to (Webster) would show you if (at least) Webster will >break? I don't know how (of if) Webster would sense such a change, but >it's worth a shot. > >Jeff The same files, web2 and web2a, are on our Unix mainframe so I expect they are part of the BSD. I assume they are used by the Unix "spell" as supplemental dictionary files, though there is no mention of them in the man pages for "spell".
burns@cc.gatech.edu (James E. Burns) (05/08/91)
I don't have a copy here to verify it, but my guess is that web2 and
web2a are word list derived from Merriam Webster's 2nd Unabridged.
The web2a words seem to be phrases and hyphenated words.
jim burns
--
James E. Burns Associate Professor (404) 894-3816 Fax: (404) 853-9378
College of Computing, Georgia Tech, Atlanta GA 30332-0280
Internet : burns@CC.GaTech.edu
uucp: ...!{akgua,allegra,hplabs,ihnp4,linus,seismo,ulysses}!gatech!cc!burnsptok@void.caltech.edu (phillip tokumaru) (05/08/91)
In article <1991May8.144744.10089@watserv1.waterloo.edu> wgilbert@fatou.UWaterloo.ca (William Gilbert) writes: > The same files, web2 and web2a, are on our Unix mainframe so I expect they > are part of the BSD. I assume they are used by the Unix "spell" as > supplemental dictionary files, though there is no mention of them in the > man pages for "spell". From the Man Page for TeX: TeX was designed by Donald E. Knuth, who implemented it using his WEB system for Pascal programs. It was ported to Unix at Stanford by Howard Trickey, and at Cornell by Pavel Curtis. This version is a combination of their efforts. My guess is that you only need web to complie TeX and Knuth-related stuff. web2a = WEB -> assembly ????
haccme@milton.u.washington.edu (Thomas Ridgeway) (05/08/91)
In article <1991May8.163059.10684@nntp-server.caltech.edu> ptok@void.caltech.edu writes: >In article <1991May8.144744.10089@watserv1.waterloo.edu> >wgilbert@fatou.UWaterloo.ca (William Gilbert) writes: >> The same files, web2 and web2a, are on our Unix mainframe so I expect they >> are part of the BSD. I assume they are used by the Unix "spell" as >> supplemental dictionary files, though there is no mention of them in the >> man pages for "spell". > >From the Man Page for TeX: > > TeX was designed by Donald E. Knuth, who implemented it > using his WEB system for Pascal programs. It was ported to > Unix at Stanford by Howard Trickey, and at Cornell by Pavel > Curtis. This version is a combination of their efforts. > >My guess is that you only need web to complie TeX and Knuth-related stuff. > >web2a = WEB -> assembly ???? Well, less shows that they are word lists; I don't know who/what uses them, but they have nothing whatsoever to do with making up TeX. The saga continues. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Thomas Ridgeway, Director, Humanities and Arts Computing Center/NorthWest Computing Support Center 35 Thomson Hall, University of Washington, DR-10 Seattle, WA 98195 phone: (206)-543-4218 * Ask me about * Internet: ridgeway@blackbox.hacc.washington.edu * Unix TeX * - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
tgingric@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Tyler S Gingrich) (05/09/91)
You could rename the web files & see what breaks. If nothing you need is broken with the files missing then you could recycle them. (If you're really nervous, you could archive to floppy instead of recycling them.) Tyler
ddj@zardoz.club.cc.cmu.edu (Doug DeJulio) (05/09/91)
In article <494@heaven.woodside.ca.us> glenn@heaven.woodside.ca.us (Glenn Reid) writes: >In my never-ending quest for disk space, I discovered, in addition to the >traditional /usr/dict/words file (which I think I'll keep), there are two >more files in /usr/dict named "web2" and "web2a", that weight in collectively >at about 4Mb. The creation date is back in 1985, which leads me to believe >that they might be vestigial, but on the other hand, their names are >similar to "Webster", and I wondered if "Webster" the application uses >them somehow. I don't think the webster app uses them. I think they're just like /usr/dict/words, except that they include all the words in Webster. I think they exist only for spell checkers. I've seen /usr/dict/web* on other platforms before. -- DdJ
shirley@gothamcity.jsc.nasa.gov (Bill Shirley) (05/09/91)
|> >Anybody know what "web2" and "web2a" are, and what would break if I |> >deleted them? |> |> Perhaps renaming them and running the application that they look like |> they belong to (Webster) would show you if (at least) Webster will |> break? I don't know how (of if) Webster would sense such a change, but |> it's worth a shot. |> this is a good idea. while your at it just compress (UN*X command) the files. They'll take up less space while your figuring out if Webster will break and they will be renamed (with a .Z suffix) by command. ____ ____ ____ Bill Shirley / ___| / ___| / ___| bill@gothamcity.jsc.nasa.gov |_| |_|ciences |_| _______________________________ _omputer _ _ Opinions expressed are obtained| | |___ ___| | | |___orporation by a room full of immortal apes| \____| |____/ \____| with unbreakable typewriters. | ~~~~~~~~~~~DISCLAIMER~~~~~~~~~~~
finn@theory.tn.cornell.edu (Lee Samuel Finn) (05/09/91)
In article <1991May8.163059.10684@nntp-server.caltech.edu> ptok@void.caltech.edu writes: >In article <1991May8.144744.10089@watserv1.waterloo.edu> >wgilbert@fatou.UWaterloo.ca (William Gilbert) writes: >> The same files, web2 and web2a, are on our Unix mainframe so I expect they >> are part of the BSD. I assume they are used by the Unix "spell" as >> supplemental dictionary files, though there is no mention of them in the >> man pages for "spell". > >From the Man Page for TeX: > > TeX was designed by Donald E. Knuth, who implemented it > using his WEB system for Pascal programs. It was ported to > Unix at Stanford by Howard Trickey, and at Cornell by Pavel > Curtis. This version is a combination of their efforts. > >My guess is that you only need web to complie TeX and Knuth-related stuff. > >web2a = WEB -> assembly ???? No. The files /usr/dict/web{2,2a} have nothing at all to do with TeX; they are lists of all the bold-face entries in Webster's second dictionary. I'm not sure about /usr/dict/web2a. Neither of these are the dictionaries used by spell(1) --- that dictionary is in /usr/dict/words --- and neither of these are the Webster App dictionary, which is in /NextLibrary/References/Webster-Dictionary.
glenn@heaven.woodside.ca.us (Glenn Reid) (05/09/91)
phillip tokumaru writes > From the Man Page for TeX: > > TeX was designed by Donald E. Knuth, who implemented it > using his WEB system for Pascal programs. It was ported to > Unix at Stanford by Howard Trickey, and at Cornell by Pavel > Curtis. This version is a combination of their efforts. > > My guess is that you only need web to complie TeX and Knuth-related stuff. > > web2a = WEB -> assembly ???? I forgot about "web". Maybe it is part of TeX. But it's definitely not a filter to assembly language. Here are the first few lines from the "web2a" file: A acid abacus major abacus pythagoricus A battery abbey counter abbey laird abbey lands abbey lubber abbot cloth Abbott papyrus I renamed them to some other file names and so far nothing has broken, but it will probably break silently a year from now, long after I've forgotten that I deleted the files :-) -- Glenn Reid RightBrain Software glenn@heaven.woodside.ca.us NeXT/PostScript developers ..{adobe,next}!heaven!glenn 415-326-2974 (NeXTfax 326-2977)
paul@aqua.ccit.arizona.edu (Paul Sanchez) (05/09/91)
the file UPDATE2 which comes with the ispell distribution mentions that web2 and web2a can be specified as alternate dictionaries. aside from that i've been unable to find them referenced in any of the unix manuals even though they seem to be distributed with berkely style unix.
johnr@oceania.UUCP (John Robison) (05/10/91)
Well, nobody really has any answers, and neither do I. I did, however, find a clue... From NeXTAnswers registry.286 (Mar 1991): > Here are known extensions that are not (yet) listed > in the online documentation: [ stuff deleted] > web TeX (meta-level TeX source) [ more stuff deleted] > Valid for 1.0 > Not checked yet for 2.0 > So It might be safe to assume these are needed for TeX ?? This is curious, because 2.0 comes without TeX installed!! If they exist on other machines, you can assume that they are NOT NeXT only things... Still a mystery!!! BTW, I did a digital librarian search on "web" -- | A sophistical rhetorician, inebriated with the exuberance | | of his own verbosity. --> We gladly accept NeXT Mail <-- | | Try: uunet!oceania!johnr* OR oceania!johnr@uunet.uu.net* | | *Not necessarily (mis)representing the company or myself! |
wjs@milton.u.washington.edu (William Jon Shipley) (05/10/91)
[ speculations on /usr/dict/web being related to TeX deleted... ] web (the one that works with TeX) is a program formatting language (a very complex "pretty-printer", if you will). I seriously doubt it has anything to do with /usr/dict/web2. More likely is that /usr/dict/web2 is just a flat list of all the words you get in your webster dictionary, so that programs that are used to using /usr/dict/words can use a much more robust word set. (web2 is about 12x as big as words. I use it with an anagramming program and it gives a lot more spiffy combos.) As for /usr/dict/web2a, you got me. I have no idea what that is. I encourage people to look at it, though. It's really bizarre, sort of like a word game. -william shipley NeXT Campus Consultant (or...) Cannot lust campus NeXT
geoff@ITcorp.com (Geoff Kuenning) (05/10/91)
"Certainly is a lot of speculation goin' on in this hyar town, Sheriff.
Maybe you'd better straighten things out afore somebody gets hurt."
As the current maintainer (though not author) of the most widely-used
version of ispell, here are some facts about /usr/dict/words and
/usr/dict/web*:
1. They are distributed with all BSD releases, going back at least to
4.2 and possibly to 4.1. They are not NeXT-specific.
2. They have nothing at all to do with the NeXT Webster application.
3. They are not used by Unix spell. In fact, /usr/dict/words is not
used by Unix spell either. Unix spell uses the files /usr/dict/h*;
these and /usr/dict/words are built from some source word lists which
are not distributed with binary licenses.
4. As one poster observed, /usr/dict/web2 is a simple word list;
/usr/dict/web2a is a list of hyphenated words and phrases.
5. By default, ispell uses its own dictionary for normal spelling
checks, but the "L" (look up word) command examines a word list which
is usually configured to be either /usr/dict/words or /usr/dict/web2.
However, the private ispell dictionary can optionally be merged with
/usr/dict/{words,web2} (using the munchlist script) to produce a
larger dictionary. You can also merge with /usr/dict/web2a if you
choose, but you should use 'tr' to replace hyphens by blanks in this
case.
These are the only things I know for certain to be true. I have
always made two other assumptions about /usr/dict/web2, but have never
been able to verify them:
1. I assume that /usr/dict/web2 is derived from a Webster's dictionary.
2. I assume that /usr/dict/web2 is copyrighted, so that I am not
permitted to distribute it with ispell.
If anybody in a position of authority can reliably contradict my
second assumption, I'd certainly like to hear about it, as I'm always
interested in distributing better dictionaries.
--
Geoff Kuenning geoff@ITcorp.com uunet!desint!geoffblenko-tom@cs.yale.edu (Tom Blenko) (05/11/91)
I believe web2 and web2a are word lists distributed with BSD. They provide an alternative (and considerably larger) sample for the Unix spell command to consult. I am guessing from their name that they were extracted from some dictionary, but the name "Webster" is generic for dictionaries, so there's no reason to suppose it is related to the dictionary accessed by the Webster application. Tom
chet@odin.INS.CWRU.Edu (Chet Ramey) (05/13/91)
>I don't have a copy here to verify it, but my guess is that web2 and >web2a are word list derived from Merriam Webster's 2nd Unabridged. >The web2a words seem to be phrases and hyphenated words. Good guess. These two files are part of standard 4.3 BSD. From the ``Bug Fixes and Changes in 4.3 BSD'' document (SMM:12): ``Two new word lists have been add (sic) to /usr/dict. The 1935 Webster's word list is available as web2 with a supplemental list in web2a.'' Chet -- Chet Ramey Internet: chet@po.CWRU.Edu Case Western Reserve University NeXT Mail: chet@macbeth.INS.CWRU.Edu ``Now, somehow we've brought our sins back physically -- and they're pissed.''