Re: [Aspell-user] problem finding word list with pspell/aspell

[Melvin Hadasht]

Hi Stephen,

on Sun, 3 Nov 2002 20:41:17 -0500
"Stephen Simmons" <address@hidden> wrote:

> hellllpppp! does anybody know what's going on here? the php docs (and
> everything else that i've read) specifically say that in order to use aspell
> spell checking functionality from php scripts, both aspell and pspell must
> be compiled and loaded. after struggling with the unfortunate and absolute
> lack of clear documentation on how to do this, i finally successfully built
> a mod_php4.so (--with-pspell) and loaded it into apache.

Relax.

Pspell 0.12 and aspell 0.3x are not maintained anymore.
GNU/Aspell 0.50.x (note the "GNU") and newer are maintained (although Kevin
seeks for a new maintainer)

> now i'm told that pspell is "no longer used with aspell 0.50. that may be
> your problem" huh? the php docs say that *aspell* is deprecated. 

Do you believe the author of GNU/Aspell that answered you hours ago, or a
documentation of another package that was written days/weeks/months ago?

>is that my
> problem or not? should i go back to a previous version of aspell? will
> "--with-pspell" still work when i configure php if the pspell libs don't
> exist? should i just give up on trying to get this to work in php? are there
> any plans for aspell to be usable from within php? does anybody care what
> happens with this code?

As Kevin said, although the Pspell library does not exist anymore, the new
GNU/Aspell comes with an include header called "pspell.h" that lets you compile
old software that was coded for pspell and that was not yet upgraded to use the
new GNU/Aspell. The only difference, is that instead of linking against pspell
library, you need to link only to the new GNU/aspell library (-laspell).

If you want an example of a software that was upgraded to new GNU/Aspell and
compare with how it was coded before, checkout Sylpheed-Claws. The differences
in the code are only minimal and it was proved that it could even be linked to
GNU/Aspell without modifying the old code.

> from the scarcity of info on the net, it looks like there's a pretty small
> community of users of this software, and it's painfully clear that kevin
> atkinson doesn't feel like maintaining this code anymore (he's said this
> himself) 

Yes, he's looking for a new maintainer. But the future of GNU/Aspell is not in
danger: it is now a GNU project, with all its implications. 

> all i suspect i really need (see original post) is a way to let pspell know
> how/where to find the word lists. does anyone know how to do this? where is
> it looking?

The dictionaries (read GNU/Aspell page about them), are located at the directory
given by  `aspell config dict-dir`.  There are C examples if you want in the
GNU/Aspell package.

Cheers


-- 
Melvin Hadasht