"SPELL-ED"
                 A Utility Program For Use With
                        Alan Bomberger's
                 POOR PERSON'S SPELLING CHECKER

                               by
                        David Grenewetzki
                           DG/Systems


     Alan  Bomberger's program SPELL (the Poor  Person's  Spelling 
Checker) which first appeared in "Dr.  Dobbs Journal" has become a 
success  in  the  world of public domain  software.   The  program 
described in this documentation,  SPELL-ED, extends the utility of 
the original SPELL program by adding a number of features  usually 
found only in "commercial" products.

     SPELL  reads  in a text file,  constructs a list of  distinct 
words contained in the file,  and compares this list with a number 
of  lexicon files.   Next,  SPELL outputs a list of the words  not 
found  in  the lexicon files to the terminal and optionally  to  a 
file  called  SPELL.LEX.   Other command line  options  allow  the 
output list to be also directed to the printer.

     In  normal operation,  SPELL's output file of potential "bad" 
words,   SPELL.LEX,  must  then  be  edited  to  sort  out  "true" 
misspelled  words from those which are merely not "known"  by  the 
lexicon.   Finally,  the original text file must be examined,  and 
the true "bad" words found and corrected.  This editing process is 
time  consuming  and  often takes more time  than  manually  proof 
reading the original document.

     The program described in this document, SPELL-ED, was created 
to  speed  up  the  process  of editing  the  file  SPELL.LEX  and 
correcting the errors in the text file.  SPELL-ED reads in SPELL's 
output file,  SPELL.LEX, and displays each potential "bad" word on 
the console.   The user is asked whether the word should be  added 
to the lexicon, marked for later editing in the original text file 
or merely ignored.

     Assume  that you wish to check the spelling of an ASCII  file 
called  FILE.TXT.   First use SPELL to check the file against your 
lexicon files using the command:

                    SPELL d:FILE.TXT F

The "d:" in the command line is an optional disk  specifier.   The 
"F"  in the command line forces the output list of potential "bad" 
words  to  be  placed in a file called SPELL.LEX  on  the  default 
drive.  Next, invoke SPELL-ED with the following command:

                    SPELL-ED d:FILE.TXT

SPELL-ED  assumes  that  the file SPELL.LEX  is  resident  on  the 
default drive.   When SPELL.LEX file is successfully opened,  each 
word  in  the  file is displayed on the terminal and the  user  is 
asked for one of three inputs:

                    A --> (A)dd to NEW.LEX
                    M --> (M)ark in FILE.TXT
                    I --> (I)gnore this word

     If "A" is depressed,  the displayed word will be added to the 
     end of the lexicon file,  NEW.LEX.   If the file NEW.LEX does 
     not  exist,  it  will be created by SPELL-ED on  the  default 
     drive.   If the file already exists on the default drive, the 
     new entries will be appended to the end of NEW.LEX.

     If "M" is depressed, each occurrence of the displayed word in 
     the  file d:FILE.TXT will be marked with a pair  of  trailing 
     #'s.   For  example,  the  misspelled word  "calender"  would 
     appear as "calender##" in the marked file. 

     If  "I" (or any other key) is depressed,  the displayed  word 
     will  be ignored i.e.  neither sent to NEW.LEX nor marked  in 
     FILE.TXT.

     Typing a Control-C during this process will cause a graceful 
     abort of the program.

When  the end of the list of "bad" words is reached,  a  temporary 
file,  TEMP.$$$,  will  be created (if necessary) to hold a marked 
copy of FILE.TXT.  When this file write is successfully completed, 
the following steps occur:

          1. Erase FILE.BAK (if it exists)
          2. Rename FILE.TXT to FILE.BAK
          3. Rename TEMP.$$$ to FILE.TXT
          4. Erase SPELL.LEX

At  this point,  most word processors can easily search  FILE.TXT 
for  the "##" pattern and find all words requiring correction  in 
minimum  time.   Also,  your lexicon file NEW.LEX will have  been 
updated to include any "new" words found by SPELL.

The  source  code  for SPELL-ED is written in  Software  Toolworks 
C/80.   This  program is copyright 1982 by David  Grenewetzki  and 
DG/Systems.   Unlimited  non-commercial  distribution and  use  of 
SPELL-ED  is  authorized.   Send  comments,  suggestions  and  bug 
reports to:

                        David Grenewetzki
                           DG/Systems
                       23145 Bigler Street
                    Woodland Hills, CA 91364
                         (213) 716-1655