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Path: utzoo!utgpu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!bu.edu!nntp-read!composer
From: composer@chem.bu.edu (Jeff Kellem)
Newsgroups: alt.sources,comp.misc,alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Acronym lookup tool
Summary: Acronym lookup tool in Perl
Keywords: acronyms, database, lookup, perl
Message-ID: <COMPOSER.91Feb2145029@chem.bu.edu>
Date: 2 Feb 91 19:50:29 GMT
References: <1991Jan29.194237.12551@cs.utk.edu>
Sender: news@bu.edu.bu.edu
Reply-To: composer@chem.bu.edu
Followup-To: alt.sources
Organization: Boston University Chemistry Department
Lines: 140
In-reply-to: de5@ornl.gov's message of 29 Jan 91 19:42:37 GMT

Dave,

Thanks for posting the acronym database stuff.  For those that have
Perl, below is a quick rewrite of Dave's acronym lookup tool in Perl.
It's not fancy, just a quick translation to Perl.  Same logic, etc..

The perl script is also it's own man page (thanks to Larry Wall for the
nroff/perl trickery).  The only thing I added was to look for the
acronyms database in a few default locations, along with having the ACRON
environment variable override the defaults.  The Perl code could look
better, but hey.. it's just a quick translation.  ;-)

Enjoy...

			-jeff

Jeff Kellem
Internet: composer@chem.bu.edu

===CUT HERE===whats (in Perl)===
#!/usr/local/bin/perl
'di';
'ig00';
#
# file: whats (or whats.pl or whats.perl)
#
# usage: whats [ acronym [defn...]]
# See man page after __END__ line
#

$ACRON = $ENV{'ACRON'}
	|| (-f '/usr/local/lib/acronyms' && '/usr/local/lib/acronyms')
	|| (-f './acronyms' && './acronyms')
	|| (-f './acron' && './acron');

($me = $0) =~ s|.*/||;
die "$me: Can't find acronym file\n" unless $ACRON;

$lookup = shift || &input('What is what? ');
$lookup =~ tr/a-z/A-Z/;

$def = join(" ", @ARGV);    # gather up rest of args

open ACRON || die "$me: Can't open acronym file: $!\n";
while (<ACRON>) {
    next unless /^$lookup\s*-/o;
    push(@found, $_);	# or could do $found .= $_; $count++;
}
close ACRON;

if (!$def && @found) {
    print @found;
    exit;
} elsif (@found) {
    # or    $#found+1
    print scalar(@found), " occurrences found.\n", @found;
    if (&input("Still want to add $lookup? ") !~ /^y$/oi) {
	exit;
    }
}

$def = $def || &input("What does $lookup stand for? ") || exit;
$lookup = sprintf("%-8s- $def", $lookup);

open(ACRON, ">> $ACRON") || die "$me: Can't append to $ACRON: $!\n";
print ACRON "$lookup\n";
close ACRON;
print "$lookup\n";

sub input {
    print @_[0];
    chop($_ = <STDIN>);
    $_;
}
###############################################################

    # These next few lines are legal in both Perl and nroff.

.00;                       # finish .ig

'di           \" finish diversion--previous line must be blank
.nr nl 0-1    \" fake up transition to first page again
.nr % 0         \" start at page 1
'; __END__ ##### From here on it's a standard manual page #####

.TH WHATS 1 "February 2, 1991"
.AT 3
.SH NAME
whats \- lookup acronym/abbreviation in database
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B whats [acronym [defn...]]
.SH DESCRIPTION
.IR Whats ,
without any arguments, prompts for an acronym to look up.

With one argument,
.I whats
prints all entries from the database
that match the argument.  If no matches are found,
.I whats
prompts for expansion of the acronym or abbreviation.

With more than one argument,
.I whats
scans the database for
entries matching the first argument.  If any matches are found,
.I whats
prints the matching entries and asks if the remaining
arguments should be added as a new entry.  If no matches are
found, a new entry is created for the first argument with the
remaining arguments forming the expansion.

.SH ENVIRONMENT
.IP ACRON
The location of the acronym database.  Overrides any default locations.
.SH FILES
The acronym database is searched for in the following order:
    $ACRON
    /usr/local/lib/acronyms
    ./acronyms
    ./acron
.SH AUTHOR
Original shell script written by:
.br
Dave Sill (dsill@nswc-oas.arpa) (de5@ornl.gov as of 6/90)
Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC), Dahlgren, VA
.PP
Perl translation written by:
.br
Jeff Kellem (composer@chem.bu.edu), 2 Feb 1991
.SH "SEE ALSO"

.SH BUGS
Not blindingly fast.  The Perl version should work on any system that
runs Perl.
.PP
The Perl version is basically just a straight translation of the original
shell script.
.PP
The Perl version should probably be reorganized a tiny bit.