[aspell-devel] Re: [porting-dev] The New Aspell

[Kevin B . Hendricks]

Hi Kevin,

It is good to hear the New Aspell is coming along!  As for MySpell, it has 
just recently changed once again this time to support multiple encodings 
in use at the same time.  So that people can spell check in one language 
with one encoding and the at the same time in other langauges using the 
same or different encodings.

None of the recent changes impact the affix code iteslf and are primariy 
made to support the spell checking in multiple dictionaries simultaneously 
just by opening another MySpell object.

So if you want me to send you an updated version of MySpell as an 
attachment, please let me know, otherwise you can check it out of cvs from 
lingucomponent (use HEAD).  But you probably don't need it since Aspell 
will already handle all of the encodings and things.

Some things to think about when merging in the MySpell into the New Aspell:

1. please consider keeping dictionaries in munched text format with text 
affix files and building hash tables on-the-fly only when needed.  This 
removes all of the endian issues and binary file formats and hashing a 
munched dictionary on the fly is really fast and easy and so is parsing 
the affix file.

2. please consider making the code fully re-entrant (i.e threadsafe) and 
removing the use of any static or class variables

3. And cross platform buildability is still a big issue for OpenOffice and 
one that can't be compromised on.  On the down side, this means it 
actually has to compile with something that is not just gcc on WinNT.  On 
the plus side every platform has and uses STLport 4.0 right now so all of 
those standard templates should be readily available.

4. No hard coded paths for finding dictionaries, data files, etc.  Allow 
the path to be easily set by the calling application without the need to 
use environment variables as was needed under pspell/aspell

5. Sheer size and complexity.  The ability to link with just one library 
without the need to fight with cross-platform dlopening of modules just to 
spell check something.  Will OOo be able to just use the "library" 
component and not use all of the other things aspell supported (this 
sounds like it might be possible iven you seem to have separated out some 
of the functionality of the old aspell)


Anyway, good luck with the merging in of MySpell affix compression and I 
will help out and answer any questions I can.   

Even if points 1 to 5 above can't be met I can still generate a new Aspell 
interface for people on just Linux / Solaris to use if they see fit.  That 
way people can choose between the New Aspell, MySpell, and possbily even 
platform specific spellcheckers like the MacOSX spellchecking API all by 
choosing which specific lingucomponent to register (and they can have 
multiple libraries registered to provide that service at the same time!).

Take care,

Kevin