[Aspell-user] suggestion scores through C API

[Michael J. Brewer 99]

Not sure if this is better suited for the developer mailing list, but as I'm 
strictly a user (of the library) 
at present, I'll assume it's a user issue.  I'm looking at updating code to use 
0.50 rather than 
33.7.1, and a change in functionality is tripping me up.  So...

I'm wondering if there's a rationale behind not having suggestion scores (edit 
distances, though I 
know they're more than that) available through the C interface code.  
Previously these were 
passed back during the suggest() call.  

It seems likely to me that this was the simplest way to boil the call down to 
an extern C call, which 
makes sense.  If that's the case, it might be worthwhile (to me or to everyone) 
to restore the 
functionality using an enumeration instead of a straight vector.  However, I'm 
concerned that 
deeper forces were at work, possibly a refactoring of the scores which made 
them less user-
friendly to the outside world (namely, me).  If that's the case, perhaps what's 
newly hidden should 
stay that way.

Another possibility for me seems to be to use the C++ headers themselves and 
recreate the 
scores, though I don't see a clear way to re-use the ones generated during the 
suggest() calls.  
Seems a bit dodgy, redoing the work, though it's not much time in my usage.  
For compilation 
reasons, limiting inclusion scope and all that, I'd prefer to stick to the 
straight C api.

Anyway, to restate my questions, since they might be lost: 
Was there a reason beyond convenience for not including suggestion scores in 
the C interface?
Are other library users similarly interested in these scores?
Would it be worthwhile to add to the C API?
Am I completely missing something and the scores are readily available?

(For reference purposes, I'm working on a console/CGI app for Win32 with MinGW.)

michael