Re: [dict-beta] Re: question about sorting order

[Aleksey C. <vl...@gm...>]

Helmut Wollmersdorfer <he...@wo...> writes:

> Aleksey Cheusov wrote:
>
> [German accents]
>
>> What's wrong with dictd?
>> Look at dict://mova.org
>
> o.k., I see.
>
> It was not easy, to find a word for testing, because a lot of words is
> missing in your dicts. I choosed DE: Öl (EN: oil).
>
> http://dict.mova.org/adv.php?q=%C3%96l&btnSearch=Search&strategy=substring
> [...]
> Deutsch-Russian dictionary : öl
>
> So, this is displayed with a beginning lower case letter.
>
> The entry itself
> http://dict.mova.org/adv.php?q=%C3%B6l&dict_id=deutsch_de-ru
> Öl
> масло
>
> displays the correct beginning letter.
>
> Why the difference?

This happens because MATCH command (your first query)
returns the entries from .index file
where ALL words are lower-cased even if it noun (for German).
The second query (DEFINE command)
returns you the word's definition from .dict file
where nouns are in original form.

An input for dictfmt utility looks like this (-c5 format):
_____

öl
Öl
  масло
_____

oma f
Oma {f}
  бабушка
_____

onkel
Onkel
  дядя

The same problems appeares where AT&T headword are copied to .index file,
& sign is removed (unless --allchars option is used) and
MATCH command returns ATT confusing dictd user.

If I understand you correctly you want to see capitalized German nouns.
This may be done by implementing case sensitive search in dictd,
i.e. by adding --case-sensitive option to dictfmt creating, for example,
00-database-cs entry and switching off lowercasing headwords in .index file.
Additional checks in dictd are also needed.
Another way is to use alternative database format by using plugins.

> I am asking, because I plan a dictionary of common names of animal and
> plants in multiple languages (only latin based alphabets for the
> first).
> I would like to have all words displayed correctly, sorted correctly,
> but search input should not be case sensitive (see google).

dict protocol doesn't specify any sorting order.
And I think this is right, because it can be used not only for
looking word's definition in a general purpose dictionaries,
and preferred sorting order may be, say, relevance level.
So, if you need alphabetic sort,
it is better to implement this functionality
in the dict client.

-- 
Best regards, Aleksey Cheusov.