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Bram Moolenaar1423b9d2006-05-07 15:16:06 +00001*spell.txt* For Vim version 7.0. Last change: 2006 Apr 30
Bram Moolenaar217ad922005-03-20 22:37:15 +00002
3
4 VIM REFERENCE MANUAL by Bram Moolenaar
5
6
7Spell checking *spell*
8
91. Quick start |spell-quickstart|
Bram Moolenaard042c562005-06-30 22:04:15 +0000102. Remarks on spell checking |spell-remarks|
113. Generating a spell file |spell-mkspell|
124. Spell file format |spell-file-format|
Bram Moolenaar217ad922005-03-20 22:37:15 +000013
14{Vi does not have any of these commands}
15
16Spell checking is not available when the |+syntax| feature has been disabled
17at compile time.
18
19==============================================================================
201. Quick start *spell-quickstart*
21
22This command switches on spell checking: >
23
24 :setlocal spell spelllang=en_us
25
Bram Moolenaar13fcaaf2005-04-15 21:13:42 +000026This switches on the 'spell' option and specifies to check for US English.
Bram Moolenaar217ad922005-03-20 22:37:15 +000027
28The words that are not recognized are highlighted with one of these:
Bram Moolenaar520470a2005-06-16 21:59:56 +000029 SpellBad word not recognized |hl-SpellBad|
Bram Moolenaar7d1f5db2005-07-03 21:39:27 +000030 SpellCap word not capitalised |hl-SpellCap|
Bram Moolenaar520470a2005-06-16 21:59:56 +000031 SpellRare rare word |hl-SpellRare|
32 SpellLocal wrong spelling for selected region |hl-SpellLocal|
Bram Moolenaar217ad922005-03-20 22:37:15 +000033
Bram Moolenaar13fcaaf2005-04-15 21:13:42 +000034Vim only checks words for spelling, there is no grammar check.
35
Bram Moolenaar45360022005-07-21 21:08:21 +000036If the 'mousemodel' option is set to "popup" and the cursor is on a badly
37spelled word or it is "popup_setpos" and the mouse pointer is on a badly
Bram Moolenaar16d8f872005-11-26 23:46:11 +000038spelled word, then the popup menu will contain a submenu to replace the bad
Bram Moolenaarf9393ef2006-04-24 19:47:27 +000039word. Note: this slows down the appearance of the popup menu. Note for GTK:
40don't release the right mouse button until the menu appears, otherwise it
41won't work.
Bram Moolenaar45360022005-07-21 21:08:21 +000042
Bram Moolenaar13fcaaf2005-04-15 21:13:42 +000043To search for the next misspelled word:
44
45 *]s* *E756*
46]s Move to next misspelled word after the cursor.
Bram Moolenaar9d0ec2e2005-04-20 19:45:58 +000047 A count before the command can be used to repeat.
Bram Moolenaarac6e65f2005-08-29 22:25:38 +000048 'wrapscan' applies.
Bram Moolenaar13fcaaf2005-04-15 21:13:42 +000049
50 *[s*
Bram Moolenaar9d0ec2e2005-04-20 19:45:58 +000051[s Like "]s" but search backwards, find the misspelled
Bram Moolenaar30abd282005-06-22 22:35:10 +000052 word before the cursor. Doesn't recognize words
53 split over two lines, thus may stop at words that are
Bram Moolenaar0d9c26d2005-07-02 23:19:16 +000054 not highlighted as bad. Does not stop at word with
55 missing capital at the start of a line.
Bram Moolenaar9d0ec2e2005-04-20 19:45:58 +000056
57 *]S*
58]S Like "]s" but only stop at bad words, not at rare
59 words or words for another region.
60
61 *[S*
62[S Like "]S" but search backwards.
Bram Moolenaar13fcaaf2005-04-15 21:13:42 +000063
Bram Moolenaar217ad922005-03-20 22:37:15 +000064
Bram Moolenaarf75a9632005-09-13 21:20:47 +000065To add words to your own word list:
Bram Moolenaar82cf9b62005-06-07 21:09:25 +000066
67 *zg*
Bram Moolenaar0d9c26d2005-07-02 23:19:16 +000068zg Add word under the cursor as a good word to the first
Bram Moolenaarda2303d2005-08-30 21:55:26 +000069 name in 'spellfile'. A count may precede the command
70 to indicate the entry in 'spellfile' to be used. A
71 count of two uses the second entry.
72
73 In Visual mode the selected characters are added as a
74 word (including white space!).
75 When the cursor is on text that is marked as badly
76 spelled then the marked text is used.
77 Otherwise the word under the cursor, separated by
78 non-word characters, is used.
79
80 If the word is explicitly marked as bad word in
81 another spell file the result is unpredictable.
Bram Moolenaar82cf9b62005-06-07 21:09:25 +000082
Bram Moolenaar1f8a5f02005-07-01 22:41:52 +000083 *zG*
Bram Moolenaar0d9c26d2005-07-02 23:19:16 +000084zG Like "zg" but add the word to the internal word list
85 |internal-wordlist|.
Bram Moolenaar1f8a5f02005-07-01 22:41:52 +000086
Bram Moolenaar82cf9b62005-06-07 21:09:25 +000087 *zw*
Bram Moolenaar0d9c26d2005-07-02 23:19:16 +000088zw Like "zg" but mark the word as a wrong (bad) word.
Bram Moolenaar87b5ca52006-03-04 21:55:31 +000089 If the word already appears in 'spellfile' it is
90 turned into a comment line. See |spellfile-cleanup|
91 for getting rid of those.
Bram Moolenaar82cf9b62005-06-07 21:09:25 +000092
Bram Moolenaar1f8a5f02005-07-01 22:41:52 +000093 *zW*
Bram Moolenaar0d9c26d2005-07-02 23:19:16 +000094zW Like "zw" but add the word to the internal word list
95 |internal-wordlist|.
Bram Moolenaar1f8a5f02005-07-01 22:41:52 +000096
Bram Moolenaar87b5ca52006-03-04 21:55:31 +000097zuw *zug* *zuw*
98zug Undo |zw| and |zg|, remove the word from the entry in
99 'spellfile'. Count used as with |zg|.
100
101zuW *zuG* *zuW*
102zuG Undo |zW| and |zG|, remove the word from the internal
103 word list. Count used as with |zg|.
104
Bram Moolenaar520470a2005-06-16 21:59:56 +0000105 *:spe* *:spellgood*
Bram Moolenaar0d9c26d2005-07-02 23:19:16 +0000106:[count]spe[llgood] {word}
Bram Moolenaar53180ce2005-07-05 21:48:14 +0000107 Add {word} as a good word to 'spellfile', like with
Bram Moolenaar87b5ca52006-03-04 21:55:31 +0000108 |zg|. Without count the first name is used, with a
Bram Moolenaar0d9c26d2005-07-02 23:19:16 +0000109 count of two the second entry, etc.
Bram Moolenaar82cf9b62005-06-07 21:09:25 +0000110
Bram Moolenaar53180ce2005-07-05 21:48:14 +0000111:spe[llgood]! {word} Add {word} as a good word to the internal word list,
Bram Moolenaar87b5ca52006-03-04 21:55:31 +0000112 like with |zG|.
Bram Moolenaar1f8a5f02005-07-01 22:41:52 +0000113
Bram Moolenaar520470a2005-06-16 21:59:56 +0000114 *:spellw* *:spellwrong*
Bram Moolenaar0d9c26d2005-07-02 23:19:16 +0000115:[count]spellw[rong] {word}
Bram Moolenaar53180ce2005-07-05 21:48:14 +0000116 Add {word} as a wrong (bad) word to 'spellfile', as
Bram Moolenaar87b5ca52006-03-04 21:55:31 +0000117 with |zw|. Without count the first name is used, with
Bram Moolenaar0d9c26d2005-07-02 23:19:16 +0000118 a count of two the second entry, etc.
Bram Moolenaar82cf9b62005-06-07 21:09:25 +0000119
Bram Moolenaar53180ce2005-07-05 21:48:14 +0000120:spellw[rong]! {word} Add {word} as a wrong (bad) word to the internal word
Bram Moolenaar87b5ca52006-03-04 21:55:31 +0000121 list, like with |zW|.
122
123:[count]spellu[ndo] {word} *:spellu* *:spellundo*
124 Like |zuw|. [count] used as with |:spellgood|.
125
126:spellu[ndo]! {word} Like |zuW|. [count] used as with |:spellgood|.
127
Bram Moolenaar1f8a5f02005-07-01 22:41:52 +0000128
Bram Moolenaarf461c8e2005-06-25 23:04:51 +0000129After adding a word to 'spellfile' with the above commands its associated
Bram Moolenaard042c562005-06-30 22:04:15 +0000130".spl" file will automatically be updated and reloaded. If you change
131'spellfile' manually you need to use the |:mkspell| command. This sequence of
132commands mostly works well: >
Bram Moolenaar0d9c26d2005-07-02 23:19:16 +0000133 :edit <file in 'spellfile'>
Bram Moolenaarf461c8e2005-06-25 23:04:51 +0000134< (make changes to the spell file) >
135 :mkspell! %
136
137More details about the 'spellfile' format below |spell-wordlist-format|.
Bram Moolenaar82cf9b62005-06-07 21:09:25 +0000138
Bram Moolenaar0d9c26d2005-07-02 23:19:16 +0000139 *internal-wordlist*
Bram Moolenaar1f8a5f02005-07-01 22:41:52 +0000140The internal word list is used for all buffers where 'spell' is set. It is
141not stored, it is lost when you exit Vim. It is also cleared when 'encoding'
142is set.
143
Bram Moolenaar82cf9b62005-06-07 21:09:25 +0000144
Bram Moolenaar9ba0eb82005-06-13 22:28:56 +0000145Finding suggestions for bad words:
Bram Moolenaarcc016f52005-12-10 20:23:46 +0000146 *z=*
147z= For the word under/after the cursor suggest correctly
Bram Moolenaard042c562005-06-30 22:04:15 +0000148 spelled words. This also works to find alternatives
149 for a word that is not highlighted as a bad word,
150 e.g., when the word after it is bad.
Bram Moolenaar7df351e2006-01-23 22:30:28 +0000151 In Visual mode the highlighted text is taken as the
152 word to be replaced.
153 The results are sorted on similarity to the word being
154 replaced.
Bram Moolenaar90915b52005-08-21 22:17:52 +0000155 This may take a long time. Hit CTRL-C when you get
Bram Moolenaar9ba0eb82005-06-13 22:28:56 +0000156 bored.
Bram Moolenaar90915b52005-08-21 22:17:52 +0000157
158 If the command is used without a count the
159 alternatives are listed and you can enter the number
160 of your choice or press <Enter> if you don't want to
161 replace. You can also use the mouse to click on your
162 choice (only works if the mouse can be used in Normal
163 mode and when there are no line wraps). Click on the
164 first line (the header) to cancel.
165
Bram Moolenaarfc1421e2006-04-20 22:17:20 +0000166 The suggestions listed normally replace a highlighted
167 bad word. Sometimes they include other text, in that
168 case the replaced text is also listed after a "<".
169
Bram Moolenaar90915b52005-08-21 22:17:52 +0000170 If a count is used that suggestion is used, without
Bram Moolenaarcc016f52005-12-10 20:23:46 +0000171 prompting. For example, "1z=" always takes the first
Bram Moolenaar90915b52005-08-21 22:17:52 +0000172 suggestion.
173
174 If 'verbose' is non-zero a score will be displayed
175 with the suggestions to indicate the likeliness to the
176 badly spelled word (the higher the score the more
177 different).
Bram Moolenaard857f0e2005-06-21 22:37:39 +0000178 When a word was replaced the redo command "." will
179 repeat the word replacement. This works like "ciw",
Bram Moolenaar6f16eb82005-08-23 21:02:42 +0000180 the good word and <Esc>. This does NOT work for Thai
181 and other languages without spaces between words.
Bram Moolenaard857f0e2005-06-21 22:37:39 +0000182
Bram Moolenaar24bbcfe2005-06-28 23:32:02 +0000183 *:spellr* *:spellrepall* *E752* *E753*
Bram Moolenaarcc016f52005-12-10 20:23:46 +0000184:spellr[epall] Repeat the replacement done by |z=| for all matches
Bram Moolenaar24bbcfe2005-06-28 23:32:02 +0000185 with the replaced word in the current window.
186
Bram Moolenaar488c6512005-08-11 20:09:58 +0000187In Insert mode, when the cursor is after a badly spelled word, you can use
188CTRL-X s to find suggestions. This works like Insert mode completion. Use
189CTRL-N to use the next suggestion, CTRL-P to go back. |i_CTRL-X_s|
190
Bram Moolenaard857f0e2005-06-21 22:37:39 +0000191The 'spellsuggest' option influences how the list of suggestions is generated
192and sorted. See |'spellsuggest'|.
Bram Moolenaar9ba0eb82005-06-13 22:28:56 +0000193
Bram Moolenaar0d9c26d2005-07-02 23:19:16 +0000194The 'spellcapcheck' option is used to check the first word of a sentence
195starts with a capital. This doesn't work for the first word in the file.
196When there is a line break right after a sentence the highlighting of the next
Bram Moolenaar90cfdbe2005-08-12 19:59:19 +0000197line may be postponed. Use |CTRL-L| when needed. Also see |set-spc-auto| for
198how it can be set automatically when 'spelllang' is set.
Bram Moolenaar0d9c26d2005-07-02 23:19:16 +0000199
Bram Moolenaar4770d092006-01-12 23:22:24 +0000200Vim counts the number of times a good word is encountered. This is used to
201sort the suggestions: words that have been seen before get a small bonus,
202words that have been seen often get a bigger bonus. The COMMON item in the
203affix file can be used to define common words, so that this mechanism also
204works in a new or short file |spell-COMMON|.
205
Bram Moolenaard042c562005-06-30 22:04:15 +0000206==============================================================================
2072. Remarks on spell checking *spell-remarks*
Bram Moolenaar9ba0eb82005-06-13 22:28:56 +0000208
Bram Moolenaar6bb68362005-03-22 23:03:44 +0000209PERFORMANCE
210
Bram Moolenaard042c562005-06-30 22:04:15 +0000211Vim does on-the-fly spell checking. To make this work fast the word list is
212loaded in memory. Thus this uses a lot of memory (1 Mbyte or more). There
213might also be a noticeable delay when the word list is loaded, which happens
214when 'spell' is set and when 'spelllang' is set while 'spell' was already set.
215To minimize the delay each word list is only loaded once, it is not deleted
216when 'spelllang' is made empty or 'spell' is reset. When 'encoding' is set
217all the word lists are reloaded, thus you may notice a delay then too.
Bram Moolenaar6bb68362005-03-22 23:03:44 +0000218
219
Bram Moolenaar217ad922005-03-20 22:37:15 +0000220REGIONS
221
222A word may be spelled differently in various regions. For example, English
223comes in (at least) these variants:
224
225 en all regions
Bram Moolenaar5c5474b2005-04-19 21:40:26 +0000226 en_au Australia
Bram Moolenaar217ad922005-03-20 22:37:15 +0000227 en_ca Canada
Bram Moolenaar5c5474b2005-04-19 21:40:26 +0000228 en_gb Great Britain
229 en_nz New Zealand
230 en_us USA
Bram Moolenaar217ad922005-03-20 22:37:15 +0000231
232Words that are not used in one region but are used in another region are
Bram Moolenaar520470a2005-06-16 21:59:56 +0000233highlighted with SpellLocal |hl-SpellLocal|.
Bram Moolenaar217ad922005-03-20 22:37:15 +0000234
Bram Moolenaar13fcaaf2005-04-15 21:13:42 +0000235Always use lowercase letters for the language and region names.
Bram Moolenaar217ad922005-03-20 22:37:15 +0000236
Bram Moolenaar3638c682005-06-08 22:05:14 +0000237When adding a word with |zg| or another command it's always added for all
238regions. You can change that by manually editing the 'spellfile'. See
Bram Moolenaar0dc065e2005-07-04 22:49:24 +0000239|spell-wordlist-format|. Note that the regions as specified in the files in
Bram Moolenaar16d8f872005-11-26 23:46:11 +0000240'spellfile' are only used when all entries in 'spelllang' specify the same
Bram Moolenaar0dc065e2005-07-04 22:49:24 +0000241region (not counting files specified by their .spl name).
Bram Moolenaar3638c682005-06-08 22:05:14 +0000242
Bram Moolenaar5b8d8fd2005-08-16 23:01:50 +0000243 *spell-german*
Bram Moolenaarae5bce12005-08-15 21:41:48 +0000244Specific exception: For German these special regions are used:
245 de all German words accepted
246 de_de old and new spelling
247 de_19 old spelling
248 de_20 new spelling
249 de_at Austria
250 de_ch Switzerland
251
Bram Moolenaar92d640f2005-09-05 22:11:52 +0000252 *spell-russian*
253Specific exception: For Russian these special regions are used:
254 ru all Russian words accepted
255 ru_ru "IE" letter spelling
256 ru_yo "YO" letter spelling
257
Bram Moolenaar5b8d8fd2005-08-16 23:01:50 +0000258 *spell-yiddish*
259Yiddish requires using "utf-8" encoding, because of the special characters
260used. If you are using latin1 Vim will use transliterated (romanized) Yiddish
261instead. If you want to use transliterated Yiddish with utf-8 use "yi-tr".
262In a table:
263 'encoding' 'spelllang'
264 utf-8 yi Yiddish
265 latin1 yi transliterated Yiddish
266 utf-8 yi-tr transliterated Yiddish
267
Bram Moolenaar217ad922005-03-20 22:37:15 +0000268
Bram Moolenaar3b506942005-06-23 22:36:45 +0000269SPELL FILES *spell-load*
Bram Moolenaar217ad922005-03-20 22:37:15 +0000270
271Vim searches for spell files in the "spell" subdirectory of the directories in
Bram Moolenaar3638c682005-06-08 22:05:14 +0000272'runtimepath'. The name is: LL.EEE.spl, where:
Bram Moolenaar13fcaaf2005-04-15 21:13:42 +0000273 LL the language name
Bram Moolenaar13fcaaf2005-04-15 21:13:42 +0000274 EEE the value of 'encoding'
Bram Moolenaar217ad922005-03-20 22:37:15 +0000275
Bram Moolenaar3b506942005-06-23 22:36:45 +0000276The value for "LL" comes from 'spelllang', but excludes the region name.
277Examples:
278 'spelllang' LL ~
279 en_us en
280 en-rare en-rare
281 medical_ca medical
282
Bram Moolenaar3638c682005-06-08 22:05:14 +0000283Only the first file is loaded, the one that is first in 'runtimepath'. If
284this succeeds then additionally files with the name LL.EEE.add.spl are loaded.
285All the ones that are found are used.
286
Bram Moolenaar1ef15e32006-02-01 21:56:25 +0000287If no spell file is found the |SpellFileMissing| autocommand event is
288triggered. This may trigger the |spellfile.vim| plugin to offer you
289downloading the spell file.
290
Bram Moolenaar0d9c26d2005-07-02 23:19:16 +0000291Additionally, the files related to the names in 'spellfile' are loaded. These
292are the files that |zg| and |zw| add good and wrong words to.
Bram Moolenaar3b506942005-06-23 22:36:45 +0000293
Bram Moolenaar0e21a3f2005-04-17 20:28:32 +0000294Exceptions:
295- Vim uses "latin1" when 'encoding' is "iso-8859-15". The euro sign doesn't
296 matter for spelling.
297- When no spell file for 'encoding' is found "ascii" is tried. This only
298 works for languages where nearly all words are ASCII, such as English. It
299 helps when 'encoding' is not "latin1", such as iso-8859-2, and English text
Bram Moolenaar3638c682005-06-08 22:05:14 +0000300 is being edited. For the ".add" files the same name as the found main
301 spell file is used.
302
303For example, with these values:
304 'runtimepath' is "~/.vim,/usr/share/vim70,~/.vim/after"
305 'encoding' is "iso-8859-2"
306 'spelllang' is "pl"
307
308Vim will look for:
3091. ~/.vim/spell/pl.iso-8859-2.spl
3102. /usr/share/vim70/spell/pl.iso-8859-2.spl
3113. ~/.vim/spell/pl.iso-8859-2.add.spl
3124. /usr/share/vim70/spell/pl.iso-8859-2.add.spl
3135. ~/.vim/after/spell/pl.iso-8859-2.add.spl
314
315This assumes 1. is not found and 2. is found.
316
317If 'encoding' is "latin1" Vim will look for:
3181. ~/.vim/spell/pl.latin1.spl
3192. /usr/share/vim70/spell/pl.latin1.spl
3203. ~/.vim/after/spell/pl.latin1.spl
3214. ~/.vim/spell/pl.ascii.spl
3225. /usr/share/vim70/spell/pl.ascii.spl
3236. ~/.vim/after/spell/pl.ascii.spl
324
325This assumes none of them are found (Polish doesn't make sense when leaving
326out the non-ASCII characters).
Bram Moolenaar217ad922005-03-20 22:37:15 +0000327
Bram Moolenaar6bb68362005-03-22 23:03:44 +0000328Spelling for EBCDIC is currently not supported.
329
Bram Moolenaar13fcaaf2005-04-15 21:13:42 +0000330A spell file might not be available in the current 'encoding'. See
331|spell-mkspell| about how to create a spell file. Converting a spell file
Bram Moolenaar0e21a3f2005-04-17 20:28:32 +0000332with "iconv" will NOT work!
Bram Moolenaar217ad922005-03-20 22:37:15 +0000333
Bram Moolenaara40ceaf2006-01-13 22:35:40 +0000334 *spell-sug-file* *E781*
Bram Moolenaar4770d092006-01-12 23:22:24 +0000335If there is a file with exactly the same name as the ".spl" file but ending in
336".sug", that file will be used for giving better suggestions. It isn't loaded
337before suggestions are made to reduce memory use.
338
Bram Moolenaara40ceaf2006-01-13 22:35:40 +0000339 *E758* *E759* *E778* *E779* *E780* *E782*
Bram Moolenaar13fcaaf2005-04-15 21:13:42 +0000340When loading a spell file Vim checks that it is properly formatted. If you
Bram Moolenaar0e21a3f2005-04-17 20:28:32 +0000341get an error the file may be truncated, modified or intended for another Vim
342version.
Bram Moolenaar13fcaaf2005-04-15 21:13:42 +0000343
Bram Moolenaar6bb68362005-03-22 23:03:44 +0000344
Bram Moolenaar87b5ca52006-03-04 21:55:31 +0000345SPELLFILE CLEANUP *spellfile-cleanup*
346
347The |zw| command turns existing entries in 'spellfile' into comment lines.
348This avoids having to write a new file every time, but results in the file
349only getting longer, never shorter. To clean up the comment lines in all
350".add" spell files do this: >
351 :runtime spell/cleanadd.vim
352
353This deletes all comment lines, except the ones that start with "##". Use
354"##" lines to add comments that you want to keep.
355
356You can invoke this script as often as you like. A variable is provided to
357skip updating files that have been changed recently. Set it to the number of
358seconds that has passed since a file was changed before it will be cleaned.
359For example, to clean only files that were not changed in the last hour: >
360 let g:spell_clean_limit = 60 * 60
361The default is one second.
362
363
Bram Moolenaar6bb68362005-03-22 23:03:44 +0000364WORDS
365
366Vim uses a fixed method to recognize a word. This is independent of
367'iskeyword', so that it also works in help files and for languages that
368include characters like '-' in 'iskeyword'. The word characters do depend on
369'encoding'.
370
Bram Moolenaar9ba0eb82005-06-13 22:28:56 +0000371The table with word characters is stored in the main .spl file. Therefore it
372matters what the current locale is when generating it! A .add.spl file does
Bram Moolenaarf461c8e2005-06-25 23:04:51 +0000373not contain a word table though.
Bram Moolenaar9ba0eb82005-06-13 22:28:56 +0000374
Bram Moolenaarf9393ef2006-04-24 19:47:27 +0000375For a word that starts with a digit the digit is ignored, unless the word as a
376whole is recognized. Thus if "3D" is a word and "D" is not then "3D" is
377recognized as a word, but if "3D" is not a word then only the "D" is marked as
378bad. Hex numbers in the form 0x12ab and 0X12AB are recognized.
Bram Moolenaar6bb68362005-03-22 23:03:44 +0000379
380
Bram Moolenaar30abd282005-06-22 22:35:10 +0000381WORD COMBINATIONS
382
383It is possible to spell-check words that include a space. This is used to
384recognize words that are invalid when used by themselves, e.g. for "et al.".
385It can also be used to recognize "the the" and highlight it.
386
387The number of spaces is irrelevant. In most cases a line break may also
388appear. However, this makes it difficult to find out where to start checking
389for spelling mistakes. When you make a change to one line and only that line
390is redrawn Vim won't look in the previous line, thus when "et" is at the end
391of the previous line "al." will be flagged as an error. And when you type
392"the<CR>the" the highlighting doesn't appear until the first line is redrawn.
393Use |CTRL-L| to redraw right away. "[s" will also stop at a word combination
394with a line break.
395
396When encountering a line break Vim skips characters such as '*', '>' and '"',
397so that comments in C, shell and Vim code can be spell checked.
398
399
Bram Moolenaar9d0ec2e2005-04-20 19:45:58 +0000400SYNTAX HIGHLIGHTING *spell-syntax*
Bram Moolenaar6bb68362005-03-22 23:03:44 +0000401
402Files that use syntax highlighting can specify where spell checking should be
403done:
404
Bram Moolenaar3638c682005-06-08 22:05:14 +00004051. everywhere default
4062. in specific items use "contains=@Spell"
4073. everywhere but specific items use "contains=@NoSpell"
Bram Moolenaar6bb68362005-03-22 23:03:44 +0000408
Bram Moolenaar3638c682005-06-08 22:05:14 +0000409For the second method adding the @NoSpell cluster will disable spell checking
410again. This can be used, for example, to add @Spell to the comments of a
411program, and add @NoSpell for items that shouldn't be checked.
Bram Moolenaar6bb68362005-03-22 23:03:44 +0000412
Bram Moolenaar30abd282005-06-22 22:35:10 +0000413
414VIM SCRIPTS
415
416If you want to write a Vim script that does something with spelling, you may
417find these functions useful:
418
419 spellbadword() find badly spelled word at the cursor
420 spellsuggest() get list of spelling suggestions
Bram Moolenaard042c562005-06-30 22:04:15 +0000421 soundfold() get the sound-a-like version of a word
Bram Moolenaar30abd282005-06-22 22:35:10 +0000422
Bram Moolenaar90cfdbe2005-08-12 19:59:19 +0000423
424SETTING 'spellcapcheck' AUTOMATICALLY *set-spc-auto*
425
426After the 'spelllang' option has been set successfully, Vim will source the
427files "spell/LANG.vim" in 'runtimepath'. "LANG" is the value of 'spelllang'
428up to the first comma, dot or underscore. This can be used to set options
429specifically for the language, especially 'spellcapcheck'.
430
431The distribution includes a few of these files. Use this command to see what
432they do: >
433 :next $VIMRUNTIME/spell/*.vim
434
435Note that the default scripts don't set 'spellcapcheck' if it was changed from
436the default value. This assumes the user prefers another value then.
437
Bram Moolenaarae5bce12005-08-15 21:41:48 +0000438
439DOUBLE SCORING *spell-double-scoring*
440
441The 'spellsuggest' option can be used to select "double" scoring. This
442mechanism is based on the principle that there are two kinds of spelling
443mistakes:
444
4451. You know how to spell the word, but mistype something. This results in a
446 small editing distance (character swapped/omitted/inserted) and possibly a
447 word that sounds completely different.
448
4492. You don't know how to spell the word and type something that sounds right.
450 The edit distance can be big but the word is similar after sound-folding.
451
452Since scores for these two mistakes will be very different we use a list
453for each and mix them.
454
455The sound-folding is slow and people that know the language won't make the
456second kind of mistakes. Therefore 'spellsuggest' can be set to select the
457preferred method for scoring the suggestions.
458
Bram Moolenaar217ad922005-03-20 22:37:15 +0000459==============================================================================
Bram Moolenaard042c562005-06-30 22:04:15 +00004603. Generating a spell file *spell-mkspell*
Bram Moolenaar217ad922005-03-20 22:37:15 +0000461
Bram Moolenaar13fcaaf2005-04-15 21:13:42 +0000462Vim uses a binary file format for spelling. This greatly speeds up loading
463the word list and keeps it small.
Bram Moolenaar9a50b1b2005-06-27 22:48:21 +0000464 *.aff* *.dic* *Myspell*
Bram Moolenaar13fcaaf2005-04-15 21:13:42 +0000465You can create a Vim spell file from the .aff and .dic files that Myspell
466uses. Myspell is used by OpenOffice.org and Mozilla. You should be able to
467find them here:
468 http://lingucomponent.openoffice.org/spell_dic.html
Bram Moolenaar30abd282005-06-22 22:35:10 +0000469You can also use a plain word list. The results are the same, the choice
Bram Moolenaard042c562005-06-30 22:04:15 +0000470depends on what word lists you can find.
Bram Moolenaar217ad922005-03-20 22:37:15 +0000471
Bram Moolenaar7d1f5db2005-07-03 21:39:27 +0000472If you install Aap (from www.a-a-p.org) you can use the recipes in the
473runtime/spell/??/ directories. Aap will take care of downloading the files,
474apply patches needed for Vim and build the .spl file.
475
Bram Moolenaare13305e2005-06-19 22:54:15 +0000476Make sure your current locale is set properly, otherwise Vim doesn't know what
477characters are upper/lower case letters. If the locale isn't available (e.g.,
478when using an MS-Windows codepage on Unix) add tables to the .aff file
Bram Moolenaar3b506942005-06-23 22:36:45 +0000479|spell-affix-chars|. If the .aff file doesn't define a table then the word
480table of the currently active spelling is used. If spelling is not active
481then Vim will try to guess.
Bram Moolenaare13305e2005-06-19 22:54:15 +0000482
Bram Moolenaar3b506942005-06-23 22:36:45 +0000483 *:mksp* *:mkspell*
484:mksp[ell][!] [-ascii] {outname} {inname} ...
Bram Moolenaar16d8f872005-11-26 23:46:11 +0000485 Generate a Vim spell file from word lists. Example: >
Bram Moolenaard042c562005-06-30 22:04:15 +0000486 :mkspell /tmp/nl nl_NL.words
Bram Moolenaar3b506942005-06-23 22:36:45 +0000487< *E751*
Bram Moolenaar82cf9b62005-06-07 21:09:25 +0000488 When {outname} ends in ".spl" it is used as the output
489 file name. Otherwise it should be a language name,
Bram Moolenaar3b506942005-06-23 22:36:45 +0000490 such as "en", without the region name. The file
491 written will be "{outname}.{encoding}.spl", where
492 {encoding} is the value of the 'encoding' option.
Bram Moolenaar75c50c42005-06-04 22:06:24 +0000493
Bram Moolenaard042c562005-06-30 22:04:15 +0000494 When the output file already exists [!] must be used
Bram Moolenaar520470a2005-06-16 21:59:56 +0000495 to overwrite it.
496
Bram Moolenaar0e21a3f2005-04-17 20:28:32 +0000497 When the [-ascii] argument is present, words with
498 non-ascii characters are skipped. The resulting file
Bram Moolenaar82cf9b62005-06-07 21:09:25 +0000499 ends in "ascii.spl".
Bram Moolenaar75c50c42005-06-04 22:06:24 +0000500
501 The input can be the Myspell format files {inname}.aff
502 and {inname}.dic. If {inname}.aff does not exist then
503 {inname} is used as the file name of a plain word
504 list.
505
Bram Moolenaar13fcaaf2005-04-15 21:13:42 +0000506 Multiple {inname} arguments can be given to combine
507 regions into one Vim spell file. Example: >
508 :mkspell ~/.vim/spell/en /tmp/en_US /tmp/en_CA /tmp/en_AU
509< This combines the English word lists for US, CA and AU
510 into one en.spl file.
Bram Moolenaar910f66f2006-04-05 20:41:53 +0000511 Up to eight regions can be combined. *E754* *E755*
Bram Moolenaar9ba0eb82005-06-13 22:28:56 +0000512 The REP and SAL items of the first .aff file where
Bram Moolenaar6f16eb82005-08-23 21:02:42 +0000513 they appear are used. |spell-REP| |spell-SAL|
Bram Moolenaar217ad922005-03-20 22:37:15 +0000514
Bram Moolenaar30abd282005-06-22 22:35:10 +0000515 This command uses a lot of memory, required to find
Bram Moolenaar8aff23a2005-08-19 20:40:30 +0000516 the optimal word tree (Polish, Italian and Hungarian
517 require several hundred Mbyte). The final result will
518 be much smaller, because compression is used. To
519 avoid running out of memory compression will be done
520 now and then. This can be tuned with the 'mkspellmem'
521 option.
Bram Moolenaar30abd282005-06-22 22:35:10 +0000522
Bram Moolenaard042c562005-06-30 22:04:15 +0000523 After the spell file was written and it was being used
524 in a buffer it will be reloaded automatically.
Bram Moolenaar45eeb132005-06-06 21:59:07 +0000525
Bram Moolenaar9a50b1b2005-06-27 22:48:21 +0000526:mksp[ell] [-ascii] {name}.{enc}.add
527 Like ":mkspell" above, using {name}.{enc}.add as the
Bram Moolenaard042c562005-06-30 22:04:15 +0000528 input file and producing an output file in the same
529 directory that has ".spl" appended.
Bram Moolenaar9a50b1b2005-06-27 22:48:21 +0000530
531:mksp[ell] [-ascii] {name}
532 Like ":mkspell" above, using {name} as the input file
Bram Moolenaard042c562005-06-30 22:04:15 +0000533 and producing an output file in the same directory
534 that has ".{enc}.spl" appended.
Bram Moolenaar82cf9b62005-06-07 21:09:25 +0000535
Bram Moolenaarae5bce12005-08-15 21:41:48 +0000536Vim will report the number of duplicate words. This might be a mistake in the
537list of words. But sometimes it is used to have different prefixes and
538suffixes for the same basic word to avoid them combining (e.g. Czech uses
Bram Moolenaar8aff23a2005-08-19 20:40:30 +0000539this). If you want Vim to report all duplicate words set the 'verbose'
540option.
Bram Moolenaarae5bce12005-08-15 21:41:48 +0000541
Bram Moolenaar82cf9b62005-06-07 21:09:25 +0000542Since you might want to change a Myspell word list for use with Vim the
543following procedure is recommended:
Bram Moolenaar217ad922005-03-20 22:37:15 +0000544
Bram Moolenaar13fcaaf2005-04-15 21:13:42 +00005451. Obtain the xx_YY.aff and xx_YY.dic files from Myspell.
5462. Make a copy of these files to xx_YY.orig.aff and xx_YY.orig.dic.
5473. Change the xx_YY.aff and xx_YY.dic files to remove bad words, add missing
Bram Moolenaar0cb032e2005-04-23 20:52:00 +0000548 words, define word characters with FOL/LOW/UPP, etc. The distributed
549 "src/spell/*.diff" files can be used.
Bram Moolenaard042c562005-06-30 22:04:15 +00005504. Start Vim with the right locale and use |:mkspell| to generate the Vim
551 spell file.
5525. Try out the spell file with ":set spell spelllang=xx" if you wrote it in
Bram Moolenaar7d1f5db2005-07-03 21:39:27 +0000553 a spell directory in 'runtimepath', or ":set spelllang=xx.enc.spl" if you
Bram Moolenaard042c562005-06-30 22:04:15 +0000554 wrote it somewhere else.
Bram Moolenaar217ad922005-03-20 22:37:15 +0000555
Bram Moolenaar13fcaaf2005-04-15 21:13:42 +0000556When the Myspell files are updated you can merge the differences:
Bram Moolenaar0cb032e2005-04-23 20:52:00 +00005571. Obtain the new Myspell files as xx_YY.new.aff and xx_UU.new.dic.
5582. Use Vimdiff to see what changed: >
Bram Moolenaar13fcaaf2005-04-15 21:13:42 +0000559 vimdiff xx_YY.orig.dic xx_YY.new.dic
Bram Moolenaar0cb032e2005-04-23 20:52:00 +00005603. Take over the changes you like in xx_YY.dic.
Bram Moolenaar13fcaaf2005-04-15 21:13:42 +0000561 You may also need to change xx_YY.aff.
Bram Moolenaar0cb032e2005-04-23 20:52:00 +00005624. Rename xx_YY.new.dic to xx_YY.orig.dic and xx_YY.new.aff to xx_YY.new.aff.
Bram Moolenaar217ad922005-03-20 22:37:15 +0000563
Bram Moolenaar3b506942005-06-23 22:36:45 +0000564
Bram Moolenaar8aff23a2005-08-19 20:40:30 +0000565SPELL FILE VERSIONS *E770* *E771* *E772*
566
567Spell checking is a relatively new feature in Vim, thus it's possible that the
568.spl file format will be changed to support more languages. Vim will check
569the validity of the spell file and report anything wrong.
570
571 E771: Old spell file, needs to be updated ~
572This spell file is older than your Vim. You need to update the .spl file.
573
574 E772: Spell file is for newer version of Vim ~
575This means the spell file was made for a later version of Vim. You need to
576update Vim.
577
578 E770: Unsupported section in spell file ~
579This means the spell file was made for a later version of Vim and contains a
580section that is required for the spell file to work. In this case it's
581probably a good idea to upgrade your Vim.
582
583
Bram Moolenaar3b506942005-06-23 22:36:45 +0000584SPELL FILE DUMP
585
586If for some reason you want to check what words are supported by the currently
587used spelling files, use this command:
588
589 *:spelldump* *:spelld*
590:spelld[ump] Open a new window and fill it with all currently valid
Bram Moolenaarac6e65f2005-08-29 22:25:38 +0000591 words. Compound words are not included.
Bram Moolenaard042c562005-06-30 22:04:15 +0000592 Note: For some languages the result may be enormous,
593 causing Vim to run out of memory.
Bram Moolenaar3b506942005-06-23 22:36:45 +0000594
Bram Moolenaar4770d092006-01-12 23:22:24 +0000595:spelld[ump]! Like ":spelldump" and include the word count. This is
596 the number of times the word was found while
597 updating the screen. Words that are in COMMON items
598 get a starting count of 10.
599
Bram Moolenaar3b506942005-06-23 22:36:45 +0000600The format of the word list is used |spell-wordlist-format|. You should be
601able to read it with ":mkspell" to generate one .spl file that includes all
602the words.
603
Bram Moolenaar1f8a5f02005-07-01 22:41:52 +0000604When all entries to 'spelllang' use the same regions or no regions at all then
605the region information is included in the dumped words. Otherwise only words
606for the current region are included and no "/regions" line is generated.
Bram Moolenaar3b506942005-06-23 22:36:45 +0000607
Bram Moolenaard042c562005-06-30 22:04:15 +0000608Comment lines with the name of the .spl file are used as a header above the
609words that were generated from that .spl file.
Bram Moolenaar3b506942005-06-23 22:36:45 +0000610
Bram Moolenaar1ef15e32006-02-01 21:56:25 +0000611
612SPELL FILE MISSING *spell-SpellFileMissing* *spellfile.vim*
613
614If the spell file for the language you are using is not available, you will
615get an error message. But if the "spellfile.vim" plugin is active it will
616offer you to download the spell file. Just follow the instructions, it will
617ask you where to write the file.
618
619The plugin has a default place where to look for spell files, on the Vim ftp
620server. If you want to use another location or another protocol, set the
621g:spellfile_URL variable to the directory that holds the spell files. The
622|netrw| plugin is used for getting the file, look there for the speficic
623syntax of the URL. Example: >
624 let g:spellfile_URL = 'http://ftp.vim.org/vim/runtime/spell'
625You may need to escape special characters.
626
627The plugin will only ask about downloading a language once. If you want to
628try again anyway restart Vim, or set g:spellfile_URL to another value (e.g.,
629prepend a space).
630
631To avoid using the "spellfile.vim" plugin do this in your vimrc file: >
632
633 let loaded_spellfile_plugin = 1
634
635Instead of using the plugin you can define a |SpellFileMissing| autocommand to
636handle the missing file yourself. You can use it like this: >
637
638 :au SpellFileMissing * call Download_spell_file(expand('<amatch>'))
639
640Thus the <amatch> item contains the name of the language. Another important
641value is 'encoding', since every encoding has its own spell file. With two
642exceptions:
643- For ISO-8859-15 (latin9) the name "latin1" is used (the encodings only
644 differ in characters not used in dictionary words).
645- The name "ascii" may also be used for some languages where the words use
646 only ASCII letters for most of the words.
647
648The default "spellfile.vim" plugin uses this autocommand, if you define your
649autocommand afterwars you may want to use ":au! SpellFileMissing" to overrule
650it. If you define your autocommand before the plugin is loaded it will notice
651this and not do anything.
652
Bram Moolenaar13fcaaf2005-04-15 21:13:42 +0000653==============================================================================
Bram Moolenaard042c562005-06-30 22:04:15 +00006544. Spell file format *spell-file-format*
Bram Moolenaar217ad922005-03-20 22:37:15 +0000655
Bram Moolenaar13fcaaf2005-04-15 21:13:42 +0000656This is the format of the files that are used by the person who creates and
657maintains a word list.
Bram Moolenaar217ad922005-03-20 22:37:15 +0000658
Bram Moolenaar13fcaaf2005-04-15 21:13:42 +0000659Note that we avoid the word "dictionary" here. That is because the goal of
660spell checking differs from writing a dictionary (as in the book). For
Bram Moolenaar16d8f872005-11-26 23:46:11 +0000661spelling we need a list of words that are OK, thus should not be highlighted.
662Person and company names will not appear in a dictionary, but do appear in a
663word list. And some old words are rarely used while they are common
664misspellings. These do appear in a dictionary but not in a word list.
Bram Moolenaar217ad922005-03-20 22:37:15 +0000665
Bram Moolenaar7d1f5db2005-07-03 21:39:27 +0000666There are two formats: A straight list of words and a list using affix
Bram Moolenaard042c562005-06-30 22:04:15 +0000667compression. The files with affix compression are used by Myspell (Mozilla
668and OpenOffice.org). This requires two files, one with .aff and one with .dic
669extension.
Bram Moolenaar75c50c42005-06-04 22:06:24 +0000670
671
Bram Moolenaard042c562005-06-30 22:04:15 +0000672FORMAT OF STRAIGHT WORD LIST *spell-wordlist-format*
Bram Moolenaar75c50c42005-06-04 22:06:24 +0000673
Bram Moolenaar82cf9b62005-06-07 21:09:25 +0000674The words must appear one per line. That is all that is required.
Bram Moolenaard042c562005-06-30 22:04:15 +0000675
Bram Moolenaar82cf9b62005-06-07 21:09:25 +0000676Additionally the following items are recognized:
Bram Moolenaard042c562005-06-30 22:04:15 +0000677
Bram Moolenaar75c50c42005-06-04 22:06:24 +0000678- Empty and blank lines are ignored.
Bram Moolenaard042c562005-06-30 22:04:15 +0000679
Bram Moolenaar4770d092006-01-12 23:22:24 +0000680 # comment ~
Bram Moolenaar75c50c42005-06-04 22:06:24 +0000681- Lines starting with a # are ignored (comment lines).
Bram Moolenaard042c562005-06-30 22:04:15 +0000682
Bram Moolenaar4770d092006-01-12 23:22:24 +0000683 /encoding=utf-8 ~
Bram Moolenaar45eeb132005-06-06 21:59:07 +0000684- A line starting with "/encoding=", before any word, specifies the encoding
685 of the file. After the second '=' comes an encoding name. This tells Vim
Bram Moolenaard042c562005-06-30 22:04:15 +0000686 to setup conversion from the specified encoding to 'encoding'. Thus you can
687 use one word list for several target encodings.
688
Bram Moolenaar4770d092006-01-12 23:22:24 +0000689 /regions=usca ~
Bram Moolenaar3638c682005-06-08 22:05:14 +0000690- A line starting with "/regions=" specifies the region names that are
691 supported. Each region name must be two ASCII letters. The first one is
692 region 1. Thus "/regions=usca" has region 1 "us" and region 2 "ca".
Bram Moolenaard042c562005-06-30 22:04:15 +0000693 In an addition word list the region names should be equal to the main word
694 list!
695
Bram Moolenaar82cf9b62005-06-07 21:09:25 +0000696- Other lines starting with '/' are reserved for future use. The ones that
Bram Moolenaar4770d092006-01-12 23:22:24 +0000697 are not recognized are ignored. You do get a warning message, so that you
698 know something won't work.
Bram Moolenaar75c50c42005-06-04 22:06:24 +0000699
Bram Moolenaar1f8a5f02005-07-01 22:41:52 +0000700- A "/" may follow the word with the following items:
Bram Moolenaarc9b4b052006-04-30 18:54:39 +0000701 = Case must match exactly.
Bram Moolenaar1f8a5f02005-07-01 22:41:52 +0000702 ? Rare word.
703 ! Bad (wrong) word.
704 digit A region in which the word is valid. If no regions are
Bram Moolenaarc9b4b052006-04-30 18:54:39 +0000705 specified the word is valid in all regions.
Bram Moolenaar1f8a5f02005-07-01 22:41:52 +0000706
Bram Moolenaar3638c682005-06-08 22:05:14 +0000707Example:
708
709 # This is an example word list comment
710 /encoding=latin1 encoding of the file
711 /regions=uscagb regions "us", "ca" and "gb"
712 example word for all regions
Bram Moolenaar1f8a5f02005-07-01 22:41:52 +0000713 blah/12 word for regions "us" and "ca"
714 vim/! bad word
715 Campbell/?3 rare word in region 3 "gb"
716 's mornings/= keep-case word
Bram Moolenaar3638c682005-06-08 22:05:14 +0000717
Bram Moolenaar0dc065e2005-07-04 22:49:24 +0000718Note that when "/=" is used the same word with all upper-case letters is not
719accepted. This is different from a word with mixed case that is automatically
720marked as keep-case, those words may appear in all upper-case letters.
721
Bram Moolenaar75c50c42005-06-04 22:06:24 +0000722
Bram Moolenaar8dff8182006-04-06 20:18:50 +0000723FORMAT WITH .AFF AND .DIC FILES *aff-dic-format*
Bram Moolenaar75c50c42005-06-04 22:06:24 +0000724
Bram Moolenaar4770d092006-01-12 23:22:24 +0000725There are two files: the basic word list and an affix file. The affix file
726specifies settings for the language and can contain affixes. The affixes are
Bram Moolenaar13fcaaf2005-04-15 21:13:42 +0000727used to modify the basic words to get the full word list. This significantly
728reduces the number of words, especially for a language like Polish. This is
729called affix compression.
Bram Moolenaar217ad922005-03-20 22:37:15 +0000730
Bram Moolenaar4770d092006-01-12 23:22:24 +0000731The basic word list and the affix file are combined with the ":mkspell"
732command and results in a binary spell file. All the preprocessing has been
733done, thus this file loads fast. The binary spell file format is described in
734the source code (src/spell.c). But only developers need to know about it.
Bram Moolenaar13fcaaf2005-04-15 21:13:42 +0000735
736The preprocessing also allows us to take the Myspell language files and modify
737them before the Vim word list is made. The tools for this can be found in the
738"src/spell" directory.
739
Bram Moolenaar6f16eb82005-08-23 21:02:42 +0000740The format for the affix and word list files is based on what Myspell uses
741(the spell checker of Mozilla and OpenOffice.org). A description can be found
742here:
743 http://lingucomponent.openoffice.org/affix.readme ~
744Note that affixes are case sensitive, this isn't obvious from the description.
745
Bram Moolenaar6f16eb82005-08-23 21:02:42 +0000746Vim supports quite a few extras. They are described below |spell-affix-vim|.
747Attempts have been made to keep this compatible with other spell checkers, so
Bram Moolenaar4770d092006-01-12 23:22:24 +0000748that the same files can often be used. One other project that offers more
749than Myspell is Hunspell ( http://hunspell.sf.net ).
Bram Moolenaar6f16eb82005-08-23 21:02:42 +0000750
Bram Moolenaar13fcaaf2005-04-15 21:13:42 +0000751
Bram Moolenaar3638c682005-06-08 22:05:14 +0000752WORD LIST FORMAT *spell-dic-format*
Bram Moolenaar13fcaaf2005-04-15 21:13:42 +0000753
Bram Moolenaar4770d092006-01-12 23:22:24 +0000754A short example, with line numbers:
Bram Moolenaar13fcaaf2005-04-15 21:13:42 +0000755
Bram Moolenaar4770d092006-01-12 23:22:24 +0000756 1 1234 ~
757 2 aan ~
758 3 Als ~
759 4 Etten-Leur ~
760 5 et al. ~
761 6 's-Gravenhage ~
762 7 's-Gravenhaags ~
763 8 # word that differs between regions ~
764 9 kado/1 ~
765 10 cadeau/2 ~
766 11 TCP,IP ~
767 12 /the S affix may add a 's' ~
768 13 bedel/S ~
Bram Moolenaar13fcaaf2005-04-15 21:13:42 +0000769
Bram Moolenaar82cf9b62005-06-07 21:09:25 +0000770The first line contains the number of words. Vim ignores it, but you do get
771an error message if it's not there. *E760*
Bram Moolenaar13fcaaf2005-04-15 21:13:42 +0000772
Bram Moolenaar4770d092006-01-12 23:22:24 +0000773What follows is one word per line. White space at the end of the line is
774ignored, all other white space matters. The encoding is specified in the
775affix file |spell-SET|.
776
777Comment lines start with '#' or '/'. See the example lines 8 and 12. Note
778that putting a comment after a word is NOT allowed:
779
780 someword # comment that causes an error! ~
781
782After the word there is an optional slash and flags. Most of these flags are
783letters that indicate the affixes that can be used with this word. These are
784specified with SFX and PFX lines in the .aff file, see |spell-SFX| and
785|spell-PFX|. Vim allows using other flag types with the FLAG item in the
786affix file |spell-FLAG|.
Bram Moolenaar13fcaaf2005-04-15 21:13:42 +0000787
788When the word only has lower-case letters it will also match with the word
789starting with an upper-case letter.
790
791When the word includes an upper-case letter, this means the upper-case letter
792is required at this position. The same word with a lower-case letter at this
793position will not match. When some of the other letters are upper-case it will
794not match either.
795
Bram Moolenaar4770d092006-01-12 23:22:24 +0000796The word with all upper-case characters will always be OK,
Bram Moolenaar13fcaaf2005-04-15 21:13:42 +0000797
798 word list matches does not match ~
799 als als Als ALS ALs AlS aLs aLS
800 Als Als ALS als ALs AlS aLs aLS
801 ALS ALS als Als ALs AlS aLs aLS
802 AlS AlS ALS als Als ALs aLs aLS
803
Bram Moolenaar1cbe5f72005-12-29 22:51:09 +0000804The KEEPCASE affix ID can be used to specifically match a word with identical
805case only, see below |spell-KEEPCASE|.
Bram Moolenaar45eeb132005-06-06 21:59:07 +0000806
Bram Moolenaar4770d092006-01-12 23:22:24 +0000807Note: in line 5 to 7 non-word characters are used. You can include any
808character in a word. When checking the text a word still only matches when it
809appears with a non-word character before and after it. For Myspell a word
810starting with a non-word character probably won't work.
Bram Moolenaar13fcaaf2005-04-15 21:13:42 +0000811
Bram Moolenaar6f16eb82005-08-23 21:02:42 +0000812In line 12 the word "TCP/IP" is defined. Since the slash has a special
813meaning the comma is used instead. This is defined with the SLASH item in the
Bram Moolenaar4770d092006-01-12 23:22:24 +0000814affix file, see |spell-SLASH|. Note that without this SLASH item the word
815will be "TCP,IP".
Bram Moolenaar6f16eb82005-08-23 21:02:42 +0000816
Bram Moolenaar13fcaaf2005-04-15 21:13:42 +0000817
Bram Moolenaar4770d092006-01-12 23:22:24 +0000818AFFIX FILE FORMAT *spell-aff-format* *spell-affix-vim*
Bram Moolenaar0dc065e2005-07-04 22:49:24 +0000819
Bram Moolenaar4770d092006-01-12 23:22:24 +0000820 *spell-affix-comment*
821Comment lines in the .aff file start with a '#':
Bram Moolenaar13fcaaf2005-04-15 21:13:42 +0000822
Bram Moolenaar4770d092006-01-12 23:22:24 +0000823 # comment line ~
824
825With some items it's also possible to put a comment after it, but this isn't
826supported in general.
827
828
829ENCODING *spell-SET*
830
831The affix file can be in any encoding that is supported by "iconv". However,
832in some cases the current locale should also be set properly at the time
833|:mkspell| is invoked. Adding FOL/LOW/UPP lines removes this requirement
834|spell-FOL|.
835
836The encoding should be specified before anything where the encoding matters.
837The encoding applies both to the affix file and the dictionary file. It is
838done with a SET line:
839
840 SET utf-8 ~
841
842The encoding can be different from the value of the 'encoding' option at the
843time ":mkspell" is used. Vim will then convert everything to 'encoding' and
844generate a spell file for 'encoding'. If some of the used characters to not
845fit in 'encoding' you will get an error message.
Bram Moolenaar13fcaaf2005-04-15 21:13:42 +0000846 *spell-affix-mbyte*
Bram Moolenaar4770d092006-01-12 23:22:24 +0000847When using a multi-byte encoding it's possible to use more different affix
848flags. But Myspell doesn't support that, thus you may not want to use it
849anyway. For compatibility use an 8-bit encoding.
Bram Moolenaar13fcaaf2005-04-15 21:13:42 +0000850
Bram Moolenaare13305e2005-06-19 22:54:15 +0000851
Bram Moolenaar362e1a32006-03-06 23:29:24 +0000852INFORMATION
853
854These entries in the affix file can be used to add information to the spell
855file. There are no restrictions on the format, but they should be in the
856right encoding.
857
858 *spell-NAME* *spell-VERSION* *spell-HOME*
859 *spell-AUTHOR* *spell-EMAIL* *spell-COPYRIGHT*
Bram Moolenaarc9b4b052006-04-30 18:54:39 +0000860 NAME Name of the language
861 VERSION 1.0.1 with fixes
Bram Moolenaar362e1a32006-03-06 23:29:24 +0000862 HOME http://www.myhome.eu
863 AUTHOR John Doe
864 EMAIL john AT Doe DOT net
Bram Moolenaarc9b4b052006-04-30 18:54:39 +0000865 COPYRIGHT LGPL
Bram Moolenaar362e1a32006-03-06 23:29:24 +0000866
867These fields are put in the .spl file as-is. The |:spellinfo| command can be
868used to view the info.
869
870 *:spellinfo* *:spelli*
871:spelli[nfo] Display the information for the spell file(s) used for
872 the current buffer.
873
874
Bram Moolenaare13305e2005-06-19 22:54:15 +0000875CHARACTER TABLES
Bram Moolenaar0cb032e2005-04-23 20:52:00 +0000876 *spell-affix-chars*
Bram Moolenaar82cf9b62005-06-07 21:09:25 +0000877When using an 8-bit encoding the affix file should define what characters are
Bram Moolenaar4770d092006-01-12 23:22:24 +0000878word characters. This is because the system where ":mkspell" is used may not
879support a locale with this encoding and isalpha() won't work. For example
880when using "cp1250" on Unix.
Bram Moolenaar6f16eb82005-08-23 21:02:42 +0000881 *E761* *E762* *spell-FOL*
882 *spell-LOW* *spell-UPP*
Bram Moolenaar0cb032e2005-04-23 20:52:00 +0000883Three lines in the affix file are needed. Simplistic example:
884
Bram Moolenaare13305e2005-06-19 22:54:15 +0000885 FOL áëñ ~
886 LOW áëñ ~
887 UPP ÁËÑ ~
Bram Moolenaar0cb032e2005-04-23 20:52:00 +0000888
889All three lines must have exactly the same number of characters.
890
891The "FOL" line specifies the case-folded characters. These are used to
892compare words while ignoring case. For most encodings this is identical to
893the lower case line.
894
895The "LOW" line specifies the characters in lower-case. Mostly it's equal to
896the "FOL" line.
897
898The "UPP" line specifies the characters with upper-case. That is, a character
899is upper-case where it's different from the character at the same position in
900"FOL".
901
Bram Moolenaar6f16eb82005-08-23 21:02:42 +0000902An exception is made for the German sharp s ß. The upper-case version is
903"SS". In the FOL/LOW/UPP lines it should be included, so that it's recognized
904as a word character, but use the ß character in all three.
905
Bram Moolenaar0cb032e2005-04-23 20:52:00 +0000906ASCII characters should be omitted, Vim always handles these in the same way.
907When the encoding is UTF-8 no word characters need to be specified.
908
909 *E763*
Bram Moolenaar3b506942005-06-23 22:36:45 +0000910Vim allows you to use spell checking for several languages in the same file.
911You can list them in the 'spelllang' option. As a consequence all spell files
912for the same encoding must use the same word characters, otherwise they can't
913be combined without errors. If you get a warning that the word tables differ
914you may need to generate the .spl file again with |:mkspell|. Check the FOL,
915LOW and UPP lines in the used .aff file.
916
917The XX.ascii.spl spell file generated with the "-ascii" argument will not
918contain the table with characters, so that it can be combine with spell files
919for any encoding. The .add.spl files also do not contain the table.
Bram Moolenaar0cb032e2005-04-23 20:52:00 +0000920
Bram Moolenaare7566042005-06-17 22:00:15 +0000921
Bram Moolenaar9a50b1b2005-06-27 22:48:21 +0000922MID-WORD CHARACTERS
923 *spell-midword*
924Some characters are only to be considered word characters if they are used in
925between two ordinary word characters. An example is the single quote: It is
926often used to put text in quotes, thus it can't be recognized as a word
927character, but when it appears in between word characters it must be part of
928the word. This is needed to detect a spelling error such as they'are. That
929should be they're, but since "they" and "are" are words themselves that would
930go unnoticed.
931
Bram Moolenaar4770d092006-01-12 23:22:24 +0000932These characters are defined with MIDWORD in the .aff file. Example:
Bram Moolenaar9a50b1b2005-06-27 22:48:21 +0000933
934 MIDWORD '- ~
935
936
Bram Moolenaar6e7c7f32005-08-24 22:16:11 +0000937FLAG TYPES *spell-FLAG*
938
939Flags are used to specify the affixes that can be used with a word and for
940other properties of the word. Normally single-character flags are used. This
941limits the number of possible flags, especially for 8-bit encodings. The FLAG
942item can be used if more affixes are to be used. Possible values:
943
944 FLAG long use two-character flags
945 FLAG num use numbers, from 1 up to 65000
Bram Moolenaar81f1ecb2005-08-25 21:27:31 +0000946 FLAG caplong use one-character flags without A-Z and two-character
Bram Moolenaar6e7c7f32005-08-24 22:16:11 +0000947 flags that start with A-Z
948
949With "FLAG num" the numbers in a list of affixes need to be separated with a
950comma: "234,2143,1435". This method is inefficient, but useful if the file is
951generated with a program.
952
Bram Moolenaar81f1ecb2005-08-25 21:27:31 +0000953When using "caplong" the two-character flags all start with a capital: "Aa",
954"B1", "BB", etc. This is useful to use one-character flags for the most
955common items and two-character flags for uncommon items.
Bram Moolenaar6e7c7f32005-08-24 22:16:11 +0000956
957Note: When using utf-8 only characters up to 65000 may be used for flags.
958
959
Bram Moolenaare13305e2005-06-19 22:54:15 +0000960AFFIXES
Bram Moolenaar6f16eb82005-08-23 21:02:42 +0000961 *spell-PFX* *spell-SFX*
Bram Moolenaare13305e2005-06-19 22:54:15 +0000962The usual PFX (prefix) and SFX (suffix) lines are supported (see the Myspell
Bram Moolenaar9a50b1b2005-06-27 22:48:21 +0000963documentation or the Aspell manual:
964http://aspell.net/man-html/Affix-Compression.html).
Bram Moolenaare13305e2005-06-19 22:54:15 +0000965
Bram Moolenaar4770d092006-01-12 23:22:24 +0000966Summary:
967 SFX L Y 2 ~
968 SFX L 0 re [^x] ~
969 SFX L 0 ro x ~
970
971The first line is a header and has four fields:
972 SFX {flag} {combine} {count}
973
974{flag} The name used for the suffix. Mostly it's a single letter,
975 but other characters can be used, see |spell-FLAG|.
976
977{combine} Can be 'Y' or 'N'. When 'Y' then the word plus suffix can
978 also have a prefix. When 'N' then a prefix is not allowed.
979
980{count} The number of lines following. If this is wrong you will get
981 an error message.
982
983For PFX the fields are exactly the same.
984
985The basic format for the following lines is:
Bram Moolenaar899dddf2006-03-26 21:06:50 +0000986 SFX {flag} {strip} {add} {condition} {extra}
Bram Moolenaar4770d092006-01-12 23:22:24 +0000987
988{flag} Must be the same as the {flag} used in the first line.
989
990{strip} Characters removed from the basic word. There is no check if
991 the characters are actually there, only the length is used (in
992 bytes). This better match the {condition}, otherwise strange
993 things may happen. If the {strip} length is equal to or
994 longer than the basic word the suffix won't be used.
995 When {strip} is 0 (zero) then nothing is stripped.
996
997{add} Characters added to the basic word, after removing {strip}.
Bram Moolenaar899dddf2006-03-26 21:06:50 +0000998 Optionally there is a '/' followed by flags. The flags apply
999 to the word plus affix. See |spell-affix-flags|
Bram Moolenaar4770d092006-01-12 23:22:24 +00001000
1001{condition} A simplistic pattern. Only when this matches with a basic
1002 word will the suffix be used for that word. This is normally
1003 for using one suffix letter with different {add} and {strip}
1004 fields for words with different endings.
1005 When {condition} is a . (dot) there is no condition.
1006 The pattern may contain:
1007 - Literal characters.
1008 - A set of characters in []. [abc] matches a, b and c.
1009 A dash is allowed for a range [a-c], but this is
1010 Vim-specific.
1011 - A set of characters that starts with a ^, meaning the
1012 complement of the specified characters. [^abc] matches any
1013 character but a, b and c.
1014
Bram Moolenaar899dddf2006-03-26 21:06:50 +00001015{extra} Optional extra text:
Bram Moolenaar899dddf2006-03-26 21:06:50 +00001016 # comment Comment is ignored
1017 - Hunspell uses this, ignored
Bram Moolenaar899dddf2006-03-26 21:06:50 +00001018
Bram Moolenaar4770d092006-01-12 23:22:24 +00001019For PFX the fields are the same, but the {strip}, {add} and {condition} apply
1020to the start of the word.
1021
1022Note: Myspell ignores any extra text after the relevant info. Vim requires
1023this text to start with a "#" so that mistakes don't go unnoticed. Example:
Bram Moolenaar9a50b1b2005-06-27 22:48:21 +00001024
1025 SFX F 0 in [^i]n # Spion > Spionin ~
Bram Moolenaarc9b4b052006-04-30 18:54:39 +00001026 SFX F 0 nen in # Bauerin > Bauerinnen ~
Bram Moolenaar9a50b1b2005-06-27 22:48:21 +00001027
Bram Moolenaar81f1ecb2005-08-25 21:27:31 +00001028Apparently Myspell allows an affix name to appear more than once. Since this
1029might also be a mistake, Vim checks for an extra "S". The affix files for
1030Myspell that use this feature apparently have this flag. Example:
1031
1032 SFX a Y 1 S ~
1033 SFX a 0 an . ~
1034
1035 SFX a Y 2 S ~
1036 SFX a 0 en . ~
1037 SFX a 0 on . ~
1038
Bram Moolenaar4770d092006-01-12 23:22:24 +00001039
1040AFFIX FLAGS *spell-affix-flags*
1041
1042This is a feature that comes from Hunspell: The affix may specify flags. This
1043works similar to flags specified on a basic word. The flags apply to the
Bram Moolenaar8dff8182006-04-06 20:18:50 +00001044basic word plus the affix (but there are restrictions). Example:
Bram Moolenaar4770d092006-01-12 23:22:24 +00001045
1046 SFX S Y 1 ~
1047 SFX S 0 s . ~
1048
1049 SFX A Y 1 ~
1050 SFX A 0 able/S . ~
1051
1052When the dictionary file contains "drink/AS" then these words are possible:
1053
1054 drink
1055 drinks uses S suffix
1056 drinkable uses A suffix
1057 drinkables uses A suffix and then S suffix
1058
1059Generally the flags of the suffix are added to the flags of the basic word,
1060both are used for the word plus suffix. But the flags of the basic word are
1061only used once for affixes, except that both one prefix and one suffix can be
1062used when both support combining.
1063
1064Specifically, the affix flags can be used for:
Bram Moolenaar8dff8182006-04-06 20:18:50 +00001065- Suffixes on suffixes, as in the example above. This works once, thus you
1066 can have two suffixes on a word (plus one prefix).
Bram Moolenaar4770d092006-01-12 23:22:24 +00001067- Making the word with the affix rare, by using the |spell-RARE| flag.
1068- Exclude the word with the affix from compounding, by using the
1069 |spell-COMPOUNDFORBIDFLAG| flag.
Bram Moolenaar910f66f2006-04-05 20:41:53 +00001070- Allow the word with the affix to be part of a compound word on the side of
1071 the affix with the |spell-COMPOUNDPERMITFLAG|.
Bram Moolenaar8dff8182006-04-06 20:18:50 +00001072- Use the NEEDCOMPOUND flag: word plus affix can only be used as part of a
1073 compound word. |spell-NEEDCOMPOUND|
1074- Compound flags: word plus affix can be part of a compound word at the end,
1075 middle, start, etc. The flags are combined with the flags of the basic
1076 word. |spell-compound|
1077- NEEDAFFIX: another affix is needed to make a valid word.
1078- CIRCUMFIX, as explained just below.
Bram Moolenaar8aff23a2005-08-19 20:40:30 +00001079
Bram Moolenaar8dff8182006-04-06 20:18:50 +00001080
1081CIRCUMFIX *spell-CIRCUMFIX*
1082
1083The CIRCUMFIX flag means a prefix and suffix must be added at the same time.
1084If a prefix has the CIRCUMFIX flag than only suffixes with the CIRCUMFIX flag
1085can be added, and the other way around.
1086An alternative is to only specify the suffix, and give the that suffix two
1087flags: The required prefix and the NEEDAFFIX flag. |spell-NEEDAFFIX|
1088
1089
Bram Moolenaarc9b4b052006-04-30 18:54:39 +00001090PFXPOSTPONE *spell-PFXPOSTPONE*
Bram Moolenaar8dff8182006-04-06 20:18:50 +00001091
Bram Moolenaare13305e2005-06-19 22:54:15 +00001092When an affix file has very many prefixes that apply to many words it's not
1093possible to build the whole word list in memory. This applies to Hebrew (a
1094list with all words is over a Gbyte). In that case applying prefixes must be
1095postponed. This makes spell checking slower. It is indicated by this keyword
1096in the .aff file:
1097
1098 PFXPOSTPONE ~
1099
Bram Moolenaar8dff8182006-04-06 20:18:50 +00001100Only prefixes without a chop string and without flags can be postponed.
1101Prefixes with a chop string or with flags will still be included in the word
1102list. An exception if the chop string is one character and equal to the last
1103character of the added string, but in lower case. Thus when the chop string
1104is used to allow the following word to start with an upper case letter.
Bram Moolenaare13305e2005-06-19 22:54:15 +00001105
Bram Moolenaarae5bce12005-08-15 21:41:48 +00001106
Bram Moolenaar6f16eb82005-08-23 21:02:42 +00001107WORDS WITH A SLASH *spell-SLASH*
Bram Moolenaarae5bce12005-08-15 21:41:48 +00001108
1109The slash is used in the .dic file to separate the basic word from the affix
Bram Moolenaar33aec762006-01-22 23:30:12 +00001110letters and other flags. Unfortunately, this means you cannot use a slash in
1111a word. Thus "TCP/IP" is not a word but "TCP with the flags "IP". To include
1112a slash in the word put a backslash before it: "TCP\/IP". In the rare case
1113you want to use a backslash inside a word you need to use two backslashes.
1114Any other use of the backslash is reserved for future expansion.
Bram Moolenaarae5bce12005-08-15 21:41:48 +00001115
1116
Bram Moolenaar1cbe5f72005-12-29 22:51:09 +00001117KEEP-CASE WORDS *spell-KEEPCASE*
Bram Moolenaarae5bce12005-08-15 21:41:48 +00001118
Bram Moolenaar1cbe5f72005-12-29 22:51:09 +00001119In the affix file a KEEPCASE line can be used to define the affix name used
1120for keep-case words. Example:
Bram Moolenaar45eeb132005-06-06 21:59:07 +00001121
Bram Moolenaar1cbe5f72005-12-29 22:51:09 +00001122 KEEPCASE = ~
Bram Moolenaar45eeb132005-06-06 21:59:07 +00001123
Bram Moolenaar4770d092006-01-12 23:22:24 +00001124This flag is not supported by Myspell. It has the meaning that case matters.
1125This can be used if the word does not have the first letter in upper case at
1126the start of a sentence. Example:
1127
1128 word list matches does not match ~
1129 's morgens/= 's morgens 'S morgens 's Morgens 'S MORGENS
1130 's Morgens 's Morgens 'S MORGENS 'S morgens 's morgens
1131
1132The flag can also be used to avoid that the word matches when it is in all
1133upper-case letters.
Bram Moolenaar45eeb132005-06-06 21:59:07 +00001134
Bram Moolenaare13305e2005-06-19 22:54:15 +00001135
Bram Moolenaar1cbe5f72005-12-29 22:51:09 +00001136RARE WORDS *spell-RARE*
Bram Moolenaarae5bce12005-08-15 21:41:48 +00001137
Bram Moolenaar1cbe5f72005-12-29 22:51:09 +00001138In the affix file a RARE line can be used to define the affix name used for
Bram Moolenaar45eeb132005-06-06 21:59:07 +00001139rare words. Example:
1140
Bram Moolenaar1cbe5f72005-12-29 22:51:09 +00001141 RARE ? ~
Bram Moolenaar45eeb132005-06-06 21:59:07 +00001142
1143Rare words are highlighted differently from bad words. This is to be used for
1144words that are correct for the language, but are hardly ever used and could be
Bram Moolenaar30abd282005-06-22 22:35:10 +00001145a typing mistake anyway. When the same word is found as good it won't be
1146highlighted as rare.
1147
Bram Moolenaar910f66f2006-04-05 20:41:53 +00001148This flag can also be used on an affix, so that a basic word is not rare but
1149the basic word plus affix is rare |spell-affix-flags|. However, if the word
1150also appears as a good word in another way (e.g., in another region) it won't
1151be marked as rare.
1152
Bram Moolenaar30abd282005-06-22 22:35:10 +00001153
Bram Moolenaar6f16eb82005-08-23 21:02:42 +00001154BAD WORDS *spell-BAD*
Bram Moolenaarae5bce12005-08-15 21:41:48 +00001155
Bram Moolenaar30abd282005-06-22 22:35:10 +00001156In the affix file a BAD line can be used to define the affix name used for
1157bad words. Example:
1158
1159 BAD ! ~
1160
1161This can be used to exclude words that would otherwise be good. For example
Bram Moolenaar9a50b1b2005-06-27 22:48:21 +00001162"the the" in the .dic file:
1163
1164 the the/! ~
1165
1166Once a word has been marked as bad it won't be undone by encountering the same
1167word as good.
Bram Moolenaar45eeb132005-06-06 21:59:07 +00001168
Bram Moolenaar4770d092006-01-12 23:22:24 +00001169The flag also applies to the word with affixes, thus this can be used to mark
1170a whole bunch of related words as bad.
1171
Bram Moolenaar6f16eb82005-08-23 21:02:42 +00001172 *spell-NEEDAFFIX*
Bram Moolenaar8aff23a2005-08-19 20:40:30 +00001173The NEEDAFFIX flag is used to require that a word is used with an affix. The
Bram Moolenaar4770d092006-01-12 23:22:24 +00001174word itself is not a good word (unless there is an empty affix). Example:
Bram Moolenaar8aff23a2005-08-19 20:40:30 +00001175
1176 NEEDAFFIX + ~
1177
Bram Moolenaar45eeb132005-06-06 21:59:07 +00001178
Bram Moolenaar6f16eb82005-08-23 21:02:42 +00001179COMPOUND WORDS *spell-compound*
Bram Moolenaarae5bce12005-08-15 21:41:48 +00001180
Bram Moolenaar8aff23a2005-08-19 20:40:30 +00001181A compound word is a longer word made by concatenating words that appear in
1182the .dic file. To specify which words may be concatenated a character is
1183used. This character is put in the list of affixes after the word. We will
1184call this character a flag here. Obviously these flags must be different from
1185any affix IDs used.
Bram Moolenaarae5bce12005-08-15 21:41:48 +00001186
1187 *spell-COMPOUNDFLAG*
Bram Moolenaar4770d092006-01-12 23:22:24 +00001188The Myspell compatible method uses one flag, specified with COMPOUNDFLAG. All
1189words with this flag combine in any order. This means there is no control
Bram Moolenaar8aff23a2005-08-19 20:40:30 +00001190over which word comes first. Example:
Bram Moolenaarae5bce12005-08-15 21:41:48 +00001191 COMPOUNDFLAG c ~
1192
Bram Moolenaar362e1a32006-03-06 23:29:24 +00001193 *spell-COMPOUNDRULE*
Bram Moolenaar8aff23a2005-08-19 20:40:30 +00001194A more advanced method to specify how compound words can be formed uses
1195multiple items with multiple flags. This is not compatible with Myspell 3.0.
1196Let's start with an example:
Bram Moolenaar362e1a32006-03-06 23:29:24 +00001197 COMPOUNDRULE c+ ~
1198 COMPOUNDRULE se ~
Bram Moolenaarae5bce12005-08-15 21:41:48 +00001199
Bram Moolenaar8aff23a2005-08-19 20:40:30 +00001200The first line defines that words with the "c" flag can be concatenated in any
1201order. The second line defines compound words that are made of one word with
1202the "s" flag and one word with the "e" flag. With this dictionary:
1203 bork/c ~
1204 onion/s ~
1205 soup/e ~
Bram Moolenaarae5bce12005-08-15 21:41:48 +00001206
Bram Moolenaar8aff23a2005-08-19 20:40:30 +00001207You can make these words:
1208 bork
1209 borkbork
1210 borkborkbork
1211 (etc.)
Bram Moolenaarae5bce12005-08-15 21:41:48 +00001212 onion
1213 soup
Bram Moolenaarae5bce12005-08-15 21:41:48 +00001214 onionsoup
Bram Moolenaarae5bce12005-08-15 21:41:48 +00001215
Bram Moolenaar362e1a32006-03-06 23:29:24 +00001216The COMPOUNDRULE item may appear multiple times. The argument is made out of
Bram Moolenaar8aff23a2005-08-19 20:40:30 +00001217one or more groups, where each group can be:
1218 one flag e.g., c
1219 alternate flags inside [] e.g., [abc]
1220Optionally this may be followed by:
1221 * the group appears zero or more times, e.g., sm*e
1222 + the group appears one or more times, e.g., c+
Bram Moolenaarae5bce12005-08-15 21:41:48 +00001223
Bram Moolenaar8aff23a2005-08-19 20:40:30 +00001224This is similar to the regexp pattern syntax (but not the same!). A few
1225examples with the sequence of word flags they require:
Bram Moolenaar362e1a32006-03-06 23:29:24 +00001226 COMPOUNDRULE x+ x xx xxx etc.
1227 COMPOUNDRULE yz yz
1228 COMPOUNDRULE x+z xz xxz xxxz etc.
1229 COMPOUNDRULE yx+ yx yxx yxxx etc.
Bram Moolenaarae5bce12005-08-15 21:41:48 +00001230
Bram Moolenaar362e1a32006-03-06 23:29:24 +00001231 COMPOUNDRULE [abc]z az bz cz
1232 COMPOUNDRULE [abc]+z az aaz abaz bz baz bcbz cz caz cbaz etc.
1233 COMPOUNDRULE a[xyz]+ ax axx axyz ay ayx ayzz az azy azxy etc.
1234 COMPOUNDRULE sm*e se sme smme smmme etc.
1235 COMPOUNDRULE s[xyz]*e se sxe sxye sxyxe sye syze sze szye szyxe etc.
Bram Moolenaarae5bce12005-08-15 21:41:48 +00001236
Bram Moolenaara6c840d2005-08-22 22:59:46 +00001237A specific example: Allow a compound to be made of two words and a dash:
1238 In the .aff file:
Bram Moolenaar362e1a32006-03-06 23:29:24 +00001239 COMPOUNDRULE sde ~
Bram Moolenaara6c840d2005-08-22 22:59:46 +00001240 NEEDAFFIX x ~
Bram Moolenaar899dddf2006-03-26 21:06:50 +00001241 COMPOUNDWORDMAX 3 ~
Bram Moolenaara6c840d2005-08-22 22:59:46 +00001242 COMPOUNDMIN 1 ~
1243 In the .dic file:
1244 start/s ~
1245 end/e ~
1246 -/xd ~
1247
1248This allows for the word "start-end", but not "startend".
1249
Bram Moolenaar910f66f2006-04-05 20:41:53 +00001250An additional implied rule is that, without further flags, a word with a
1251prefix cannot be compounded after another word, and a word with a suffix
1252cannot be compounded with a following word. Thus the affix cannot appear
1253on the inside of a compound word. This can be changed with the
1254|spell-COMPOUNDPERMITFLAG|.
1255
Bram Moolenaar4770d092006-01-12 23:22:24 +00001256 *spell-NEEDCOMPOUND*
1257The NEEDCOMPOUND flag is used to require that a word is used as part of a
1258compound word. The word itself is not a good word. Example:
1259
1260 NEEDCOMPOUND & ~
1261
Bram Moolenaarae5bce12005-08-15 21:41:48 +00001262 *spell-COMPOUNDMIN*
Bram Moolenaarac6e65f2005-08-29 22:25:38 +00001263The minimal character length of a word used for compounding is specified with
Bram Moolenaarae5bce12005-08-15 21:41:48 +00001264COMPOUNDMIN. Example:
1265 COMPOUNDMIN 5 ~
1266
Bram Moolenaarac6e65f2005-08-29 22:25:38 +00001267When omitted there is no minimal length. Obviously you could just leave out
1268the compound flag from short words instead, this feature is present for
1269compatibility with Myspell.
Bram Moolenaarae5bce12005-08-15 21:41:48 +00001270
Bram Moolenaar899dddf2006-03-26 21:06:50 +00001271 *spell-COMPOUNDWORDMAX*
Bram Moolenaar8aff23a2005-08-19 20:40:30 +00001272The maximum number of words that can be concatenated into a compound word is
Bram Moolenaar899dddf2006-03-26 21:06:50 +00001273specified with COMPOUNDWORDMAX. Example:
1274 COMPOUNDWORDMAX 3 ~
Bram Moolenaarae5bce12005-08-15 21:41:48 +00001275
Bram Moolenaar8aff23a2005-08-19 20:40:30 +00001276When omitted there is no maximum. It applies to all compound words.
Bram Moolenaarae5bce12005-08-15 21:41:48 +00001277
Bram Moolenaar8aff23a2005-08-19 20:40:30 +00001278To set a limit for words with specific flags make sure the items in
Bram Moolenaar362e1a32006-03-06 23:29:24 +00001279COMPOUNDRULE where they appear don't allow too many words.
Bram Moolenaarae5bce12005-08-15 21:41:48 +00001280
Bram Moolenaar8aff23a2005-08-19 20:40:30 +00001281 *spell-COMPOUNDSYLMAX*
1282The maximum number of syllables that a compound word may contain is specified
1283with COMPOUNDSYLMAX. Example:
1284 COMPOUNDSYLMAX 6 ~
Bram Moolenaarae5bce12005-08-15 21:41:48 +00001285
Bram Moolenaar8aff23a2005-08-19 20:40:30 +00001286This has no effect if there is no SYLLABLE item. Without COMPOUNDSYLMAX there
1287is no limit on the number of syllables.
Bram Moolenaarae5bce12005-08-15 21:41:48 +00001288
Bram Moolenaar899dddf2006-03-26 21:06:50 +00001289If both COMPOUNDWORDMAX and COMPOUNDSYLMAX are defined, a compound word is
Bram Moolenaara6c840d2005-08-22 22:59:46 +00001290accepted if it fits one of the criteria, thus is either made from up to
Bram Moolenaar899dddf2006-03-26 21:06:50 +00001291COMPOUNDWORDMAX words or contains up to COMPOUNDSYLMAX syllables.
Bram Moolenaara6c840d2005-08-22 22:59:46 +00001292
Bram Moolenaar4770d092006-01-12 23:22:24 +00001293 *spell-COMPOUNDFORBIDFLAG*
1294The COMPOUNDFORBIDFLAG specifies a flag that can be used on an affix. It
Bram Moolenaar910f66f2006-04-05 20:41:53 +00001295means that the word plus affix cannot be used in a compound word. Example:
1296 affix file:
1297 COMPOUNDFLAG c ~
1298 COMPOUNDFORBIDFLAG x ~
1299 SFX a Y 2 ~
1300 SFX a 0 s . ~
1301 SFX a 0 ize/x . ~
1302 dictionary:
1303 word/c ~
1304 util/ac ~
1305
1306This allows for "wordutil" and "wordutils" but not "wordutilize".
Bram Moolenaar18144c82006-04-12 21:52:12 +00001307Note: this doesn't work for postponed prefixes yet.
Bram Moolenaar4770d092006-01-12 23:22:24 +00001308
1309 *spell-COMPOUNDPERMITFLAG*
1310The COMPOUNDPERMITFLAG specifies a flag that can be used on an affix. It
1311means that the word plus affix can also be used in a compound word in a way
Bram Moolenaar910f66f2006-04-05 20:41:53 +00001312where the affix ends up halfway the word. Without this flag that is not
1313allowed.
Bram Moolenaar18144c82006-04-12 21:52:12 +00001314Note: this doesn't work for postponed prefixes yet.
Bram Moolenaar4770d092006-01-12 23:22:24 +00001315
Bram Moolenaar899dddf2006-03-26 21:06:50 +00001316 *spell-COMPOUNDROOT*
1317The COMPOUNDROOT flag is used for words in the dictionary that are already a
1318compound. This means it counts for two words when checking the compounding
1319rules. Can also be used for an affix to count the affix as a compounding
1320word.
Bram Moolenaar899dddf2006-03-26 21:06:50 +00001321
Bram Moolenaar8aff23a2005-08-19 20:40:30 +00001322 *spell-SYLLABLE*
1323The SYLLABLE item defines characters or character sequences that are used to
1324count the number of syllables in a word. Example:
1325 SYLLABLE aáeéiíoóöõuúüûy/aa/au/ea/ee/ei/ie/oa/oe/oo/ou/uu/ui ~
Bram Moolenaarae5bce12005-08-15 21:41:48 +00001326
Bram Moolenaar8aff23a2005-08-19 20:40:30 +00001327Before the first slash is the set of characters that are counted for one
1328syllable, also when repeated and mixed, until the next character that is not
1329in this set. After the slash come sequences of characters that are counted
1330for one syllable. These are preferred over using characters from the set.
1331With the example "ideeen" has three syllables, counted by "i", "ee" and "e".
1332
1333Only case-folded letters need to be included.
1334
Bram Moolenaar910f66f2006-04-05 20:41:53 +00001335Above another way to restrict compounding was mentioned above: Adding the
1336|spell-COMPOUNDFORBIDFLAG| flag to an affix causes all words that are made
1337with that affix not be be used for compounding.
Bram Moolenaar8aff23a2005-08-19 20:40:30 +00001338
Bram Moolenaar6f16eb82005-08-23 21:02:42 +00001339
1340UNLIMITED COMPOUNDING *spell-NOBREAK*
1341
1342For some languages, such as Thai, there is no space in between words. This
1343looks like all words are compounded. To specify this use the NOBREAK item in
1344the affix file, without arguments:
1345 NOBREAK ~
1346
1347Vim will try to figure out where one word ends and a next starts. When there
1348are spelling mistakes this may not be quite right.
1349
Bram Moolenaarae5bce12005-08-15 21:41:48 +00001350
Bram Moolenaar4770d092006-01-12 23:22:24 +00001351 *spell-COMMON*
1352Common words can be specified with the COMMON item. This will give better
1353suggestions when editing a short file. Example:
1354
1355 COMMON the of to and a in is it you that he was for on are ~
1356
1357The words must be separated by white space, up to 25 per line.
1358When multiple regions are specified in a ":mkspell" command the common words
1359for all regions are combined and used for all regions.
1360
1361 *spell-NOSPLITSUGS*
Bram Moolenaarfd2ac762006-03-01 22:09:21 +00001362This item indicates that splitting a word to make suggestions is not a good
1363idea. Split-word suggestions will appear only when there are few similar
1364words.
Bram Moolenaar4770d092006-01-12 23:22:24 +00001365
1366 NOSPLITSUGS ~
1367
1368 *spell-NOSUGGEST*
1369The flag specified with NOSUGGEST can be used for words that will not be
1370suggested. Can be used for obscene words.
1371
1372 NOSUGGEST % ~
1373
Bram Moolenaar4770d092006-01-12 23:22:24 +00001374
Bram Moolenaar6f16eb82005-08-23 21:02:42 +00001375REPLACEMENTS *spell-REP*
Bram Moolenaar9ba0eb82005-06-13 22:28:56 +00001376
1377In the affix file REP items can be used to define common mistakes. This is
1378used to make spelling suggestions. The items define the "from" text and the
1379"to" replacement. Example:
1380
1381 REP 4 ~
1382 REP f ph ~
1383 REP ph f ~
1384 REP k ch ~
1385 REP ch k ~
1386
Bram Moolenaar6e7c7f32005-08-24 22:16:11 +00001387The first line specifies the number of REP lines following. Vim ignores the
Bram Moolenaar4770d092006-01-12 23:22:24 +00001388number, but it must be there (for compatibility with Myspell).
Bram Moolenaar6e7c7f32005-08-24 22:16:11 +00001389
Bram Moolenaard042c562005-06-30 22:04:15 +00001390Don't include simple one-character replacements or swaps. Vim will try these
1391anyway. You can include whole words if you want to, but you might want to use
1392the "file:" item in 'spellsuggest' instead.
Bram Moolenaar9ba0eb82005-06-13 22:28:56 +00001393
Bram Moolenaar1e015462005-09-25 22:16:38 +00001394You can include a space by using an underscore:
1395
1396 REP the_the the ~
1397
Bram Moolenaar9ba0eb82005-06-13 22:28:56 +00001398
Bram Moolenaara40ceaf2006-01-13 22:35:40 +00001399SIMILAR CHARACTERS *spell-MAP* *E783*
Bram Moolenaar9ba0eb82005-06-13 22:28:56 +00001400
Bram Moolenaard042c562005-06-30 22:04:15 +00001401In the affix file MAP items can be used to define letters that are very much
Bram Moolenaar9ba0eb82005-06-13 22:28:56 +00001402alike. This is mostly used for a letter with different accents. This is used
1403to prefer suggestions with these letters substituted. Example:
1404
1405 MAP 2 ~
1406 MAP eéëêè ~
1407 MAP uüùúû ~
1408
Bram Moolenaar6e7c7f32005-08-24 22:16:11 +00001409The first line specifies the number of MAP lines following. Vim ignores the
1410number, but the line must be there.
Bram Moolenaar9ba0eb82005-06-13 22:28:56 +00001411
Bram Moolenaard042c562005-06-30 22:04:15 +00001412Each letter must appear in only one of the MAP items. It's a bit more
1413efficient if the first letter is ASCII or at least one without accents.
Bram Moolenaare7566042005-06-17 22:00:15 +00001414
Bram Moolenaar9ba0eb82005-06-13 22:28:56 +00001415
Bram Moolenaar4770d092006-01-12 23:22:24 +00001416.SUG FILE *spell-NOSUGFILE*
1417
1418When soundfolding is specified in the affix file then ":mkspell" will normally
Bram Moolenaard12f5c12006-01-25 22:10:52 +00001419produce a .sug file next to the .spl file. This file is used to find
1420suggestions by their sound-a-like form quickly. At the cost of a lot of
1421memory (the amount depends on the number of words, |:mkspell| will display an
1422estimate when it's done).
Bram Moolenaar4770d092006-01-12 23:22:24 +00001423
1424To avoid producing a .sug file use this item in the affix file:
1425
1426 NOSUGFILE ~
1427
Bram Moolenaard12f5c12006-01-25 22:10:52 +00001428Users can simply omit the .sug file if they don't want to use it.
1429
Bram Moolenaar4770d092006-01-12 23:22:24 +00001430
Bram Moolenaar6f16eb82005-08-23 21:02:42 +00001431SOUND-A-LIKE *spell-SAL*
Bram Moolenaar9ba0eb82005-06-13 22:28:56 +00001432
1433In the affix file SAL items can be used to define the sounds-a-like mechanism
1434to be used. The main items define the "from" text and the "to" replacement.
Bram Moolenaard042c562005-06-30 22:04:15 +00001435Simplistic example:
Bram Moolenaar9ba0eb82005-06-13 22:28:56 +00001436
Bram Moolenaarc9b4b052006-04-30 18:54:39 +00001437 SAL CIA X ~
1438 SAL CH X ~
1439 SAL C K ~
1440 SAL K K ~
Bram Moolenaar9ba0eb82005-06-13 22:28:56 +00001441
Bram Moolenaar7d1f5db2005-07-03 21:39:27 +00001442There are a few rules and this can become quite complicated. An explanation
Bram Moolenaard042c562005-06-30 22:04:15 +00001443how it works can be found in the Aspell manual:
Bram Moolenaar42eeac32005-06-29 22:40:58 +00001444http://aspell.net/man-html/Phonetic-Code.html.
Bram Moolenaar9ba0eb82005-06-13 22:28:56 +00001445
1446There are a few special items:
1447
1448 SAL followup true ~
1449 SAL collapse_result true ~
1450 SAL remove_accents true ~
1451
1452"1" has the same meaning as "true". Any other value means "false".
1453
Bram Moolenaar42eeac32005-06-29 22:40:58 +00001454
Bram Moolenaar6f16eb82005-08-23 21:02:42 +00001455SIMPLE SOUNDFOLDING *spell-SOFOFROM* *spell-SOFOTO*
Bram Moolenaar42eeac32005-06-29 22:40:58 +00001456
1457The SAL mechanism is complex and slow. A simpler mechanism is mapping all
1458characters to another character, mapping similar sounding characters to the
1459same character. At the same time this does case folding. You can not have
Bram Moolenaard042c562005-06-30 22:04:15 +00001460both SAL items and simple soundfolding.
Bram Moolenaar42eeac32005-06-29 22:40:58 +00001461
Bram Moolenaar7d1f5db2005-07-03 21:39:27 +00001462There are two items required: one to specify the characters that are mapped
Bram Moolenaar42eeac32005-06-29 22:40:58 +00001463and one that specifies the characters they are mapped to. They must have
1464exactly the same number of characters. Example:
1465
1466 SOFOFROM abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ ~
1467 SOFOTO ebctefghejklnnepkrstevvkesebctefghejklnnepkrstevvkes ~
1468
1469In the example all vowels are mapped to the same character 'e'. Another
Bram Moolenaard042c562005-06-30 22:04:15 +00001470method would be to leave out all vowels. Some characters that sound nearly
1471the same and are often mixed up, such as 'm' and 'n', are mapped to the same
1472character. Don't do this too much, all words will start looking alike.
Bram Moolenaar42eeac32005-06-29 22:40:58 +00001473
1474Characters that do not appear in SOFOFROM will be left out, except that all
1475white space is replaced by one space. Sequences of the same character in
1476SOFOFROM are replaced by one.
1477
1478You can use the |soundfold()| function to try out the results. Or set the
Bram Moolenaarcc016f52005-12-10 20:23:46 +00001479'verbose' option to see the score in the output of the |z=| command.
Bram Moolenaar42eeac32005-06-29 22:40:58 +00001480
1481
Bram Moolenaar4770d092006-01-12 23:22:24 +00001482UNSUPPORTED ITEMS *spell-affix-not-supported*
1483
1484These items appear in the affix file of other spell checkers. In Vim they are
1485ignored, not supported or defined in another way.
1486
1487ACCENT (Hunspell) *spell-ACCENT*
1488 Use MAP instead. |spell-MAP|
1489
1490CHECKCOMPOUNDCASE (Hunspell) *spell-CHECKCOMPOUNDCASE*
1491 Disallow uppercase letters at compound word boundaries.
1492 Not supported.
1493
1494CHECKCOMPOUNDDUP (Hunspell) *spell-CHECKCOMPOUNDDUP*
1495 Disallow using the same word twice in a compound. Not
1496 supported.
1497
1498CHECKCOMPOUNDREP (Hunspell) *spell-CHECKCOMPOUNDREP*
1499 Something about using REP items and compound words. Not
1500 supported.
1501
1502CHECKCOMPOUNDTRIPLE (Hunspell) *spell-CHECKCOMPOUNDTRIPLE*
1503 Forbid three identical characters when compounding. Not
1504 supported.
1505
1506CHECKCOMPOUNDPATTERN (Hunspell) *spell-CHECKCOMPOUNDPATTERN*
1507 Forbid compounding when patterns match. Not supported.
1508
Bram Moolenaar4770d092006-01-12 23:22:24 +00001509COMPLEXPREFIXES (Hunspell) *spell-COMPLEXPREFIXES*
1510 Enables using two prefixes. Not supported.
1511
Bram Moolenaar362e1a32006-03-06 23:29:24 +00001512COMPOUND (Hunspell) *spell-COMPOUND*
Bram Moolenaarc9b4b052006-04-30 18:54:39 +00001513 This is one line with the count of COMPOUND items, followd by
1514 that many COMPOUND lines with a pattern.
1515 Remove the first line with the count and rename the other
1516 items to COMPOUNDRULE |spell-COMPOUNDRULE|
Bram Moolenaar362e1a32006-03-06 23:29:24 +00001517
Bram Moolenaar899dddf2006-03-26 21:06:50 +00001518COMPOUNDFIRST (Hunspell) *spell-COMPOUNDFIRST*
1519 Use COMPOUNDRULE instead. |spell-COMPOUNDRULE|
1520
Bram Moolenaar4770d092006-01-12 23:22:24 +00001521COMPOUNDBEGIN (Hunspell) *spell-COMPOUNDBEGIN*
Bram Moolenaar362e1a32006-03-06 23:29:24 +00001522 Use COMPOUNDRULE instead. |spell-COMPOUNDRULE|
Bram Moolenaar4770d092006-01-12 23:22:24 +00001523
1524COMPOUNDEND (Hunspell) *spell-COMPOUNDEND*
Bram Moolenaar362e1a32006-03-06 23:29:24 +00001525 Use COMPOUNDRULE instead. |spell-COMPOUNDRULE|
Bram Moolenaar4770d092006-01-12 23:22:24 +00001526
1527COMPOUNDMIDDLE (Hunspell) *spell-COMPOUNDMIDDLE*
Bram Moolenaar362e1a32006-03-06 23:29:24 +00001528 Use COMPOUNDRULE instead. |spell-COMPOUNDRULE|
Bram Moolenaar4770d092006-01-12 23:22:24 +00001529
Bram Moolenaar4770d092006-01-12 23:22:24 +00001530COMPOUNDSYLLABLE (Hunspell) *spell-COMPOUNDSYLLABLE*
1531 Use SYLLABLE and COMPOUNDSYLMAX instead. |spell-SYLLABLE|
1532 |spell-COMPOUNDSYLMAX|
1533
Bram Moolenaar4770d092006-01-12 23:22:24 +00001534FORBIDDENWORD (Hunspell) *spell-FORBIDDENWORD*
1535 Use BAD instead. |spell-BAD|
1536
Bram Moolenaar4770d092006-01-12 23:22:24 +00001537LANG (Hunspell) *spell-LANG*
1538 This specifies language-specific behavior. This actually
1539 moves part of the language knowledge into the program,
1540 therefore Vim does not support it. Each language property
1541 must be specified separately.
1542
1543LEMMA_PRESENT (Hunspell) *spell-LEMMA_PRESENT*
Bram Moolenaar899dddf2006-03-26 21:06:50 +00001544 Only needed for morphological analysis.
Bram Moolenaar4770d092006-01-12 23:22:24 +00001545
1546MAXNGRAMSUGS (Hunspell) *spell-MAXNGRAMSUGS*
1547 Not supported.
1548
Bram Moolenaar4770d092006-01-12 23:22:24 +00001549ONLYINCOMPOUND (Hunspell) *spell-ONLYINCOMPOUND*
1550 Use NEEDCOMPOUND instead. |spell-NEEDCOMPOUND|
1551
1552PSEUDOROOT (Hunspell) *spell-PSEUDOROOT*
1553 Use NEEDAFFIX instead. |spell-NEEDAFFIX|
1554
1555SUGSWITHDOTS (Hunspell) *spell-SUGSWITHDOTS*
1556 Adds dots to suggestions. Vim doesn't need this.
1557
1558SYLLABLENUM (Hunspell) *spell-SYLLABLENUM*
1559 Not supported.
1560
1561TRY (Myspell, Hunspell, others) *spell-TRY*
1562 Vim does not use the TRY item, it is ignored. For making
Bram Moolenaara94bc432006-03-10 21:42:59 +00001563 suggestions the actual characters in the words are used, that
1564 is much more efficient.
Bram Moolenaar4770d092006-01-12 23:22:24 +00001565
Bram Moolenaar4770d092006-01-12 23:22:24 +00001566WORDCHARS (Hunspell) *spell-WORDCHARS*
1567 Used to recognize words. Vim doesn't need it, because there
1568 is no need to separate words before checking them (using a
1569 trie instead of a hashtable).
1570
Bram Moolenaar217ad922005-03-20 22:37:15 +00001571 vim:tw=78:sw=4:ts=8:ft=help:norl: