Path: utzoo!censor!geac!torsqnt!lethe!yunexus!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!news.cs.indiana.edu!sahayman@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu From: sahayman@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (Steve Hayman) Newsgroups: comp.sys.next Subject: Re: Mathematica? Webster? Message-ID: <1991Jan17.022631.19086@news.cs.indiana.edu> Date: 17 Jan 91 07:26:01 GMT References: <3726@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> <1128@toaster.SFSU.EDU> Organization: Computer Science Department, Indiana University Lines: 30 >The server is available from iuvax.cs.indiana.edu [129.79.254.192] >as pub/webster/NeXT-websterd.shar.Z I wrote this. To forestall the inevitable questions - this daemon doesn't work with 2.0 yet, but as soon as we get 2.0 here I will make it work and publish either patches or a new version. The format of the Webster database changed drastically with 2.0. It used to be simple at 1.0 - the index file was a simple list of words and byte-offsets into the actual dictionary file, and it wasn't too hard to parse the dictionary file entries either (especially if you had a copy of the real 9th New Collegiate Dictionary handy.) There was also a "libtext" library that simplified access to it (although my websterd didn't use it, since I wrote it for an 0.9 machine before libtext was available.) Now, it's all based on B-tree's and it's not the sort of format you can puzzle out just by staring at it, and libtext isn't included with the OS any more. If you ask NeXT nicely they will send you the appropriate btree and libtext libraries. So I don't anticipate any problems coming up with a 2.0 version of websterd; it might not happen until late February though. I'll post a note when I get it all tidied up. Steve -- Steve Hayman Workstation Manager Computer Science Department Indiana U. sahayman@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (812) 855-6984 NeXT Mail: sahayman@spurge.bloomington.in.us