1*spell.txt* For Vim version 7.3. Last change: 2010 Apr 11 2 3 4 VIM REFERENCE MANUAL by Bram Moolenaar 5 6 7Spell checking *spell* 8 91. Quick start |spell-quickstart| 102. Remarks on spell checking |spell-remarks| 113. Generating a spell file |spell-mkspell| 124. Spell file format |spell-file-format| 13 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 19Note: There also is a vimspell plugin. If you have it you can do ":help 20vimspell" to find about it. But you will probably want to get rid of the 21plugin and use the 'spell' option instead, it works better. 22 23============================================================================== 241. Quick start *spell-quickstart* *E756* 25 26This command switches on spell checking: > 27 28 :setlocal spell spelllang=en_us 29 30This switches on the 'spell' option and specifies to check for US English. 31 32The words that are not recognized are highlighted with one of these: 33 SpellBad word not recognized |hl-SpellBad| 34 SpellCap word not capitalised |hl-SpellCap| 35 SpellRare rare word |hl-SpellRare| 36 SpellLocal wrong spelling for selected region |hl-SpellLocal| 37 38Vim only checks words for spelling, there is no grammar check. 39 40If the 'mousemodel' option is set to "popup" and the cursor is on a badly 41spelled word or it is "popup_setpos" and the mouse pointer is on a badly 42spelled word, then the popup menu will contain a submenu to replace the bad 43word. Note: this slows down the appearance of the popup menu. Note for GTK: 44don't release the right mouse button until the menu appears, otherwise it 45won't work. 46 47To search for the next misspelled word: 48 49 *]s* 50]s Move to next misspelled word after the cursor. 51 A count before the command can be used to repeat. 52 'wrapscan' applies. 53 54 *[s* 55[s Like "]s" but search backwards, find the misspelled 56 word before the cursor. Doesn't recognize words 57 split over two lines, thus may stop at words that are 58 not highlighted as bad. Does not stop at word with 59 missing capital at the start of a line. 60 61 *]S* 62]S Like "]s" but only stop at bad words, not at rare 63 words or words for another region. 64 65 *[S* 66[S Like "]S" but search backwards. 67 68 69To add words to your own word list: 70 71 *zg* 72zg Add word under the cursor as a good word to the first 73 name in 'spellfile'. A count may precede the command 74 to indicate the entry in 'spellfile' to be used. A 75 count of two uses the second entry. 76 77 In Visual mode the selected characters are added as a 78 word (including white space!). 79 When the cursor is on text that is marked as badly 80 spelled then the marked text is used. 81 Otherwise the word under the cursor, separated by 82 non-word characters, is used. 83 84 If the word is explicitly marked as bad word in 85 another spell file the result is unpredictable. 86 87 *zG* 88zG Like "zg" but add the word to the internal word list 89 |internal-wordlist|. 90 91 *zw* 92zw Like "zg" but mark the word as a wrong (bad) word. 93 If the word already appears in 'spellfile' it is 94 turned into a comment line. See |spellfile-cleanup| 95 for getting rid of those. 96 97 *zW* 98zW Like "zw" but add the word to the internal word list 99 |internal-wordlist|. 100 101zuw *zug* *zuw* 102zug Undo |zw| and |zg|, remove the word from the entry in 103 'spellfile'. Count used as with |zg|. 104 105zuW *zuG* *zuW* 106zuG Undo |zW| and |zG|, remove the word from the internal 107 word list. Count used as with |zg|. 108 109 *:spe* *:spellgood* 110:[count]spe[llgood] {word} 111 Add {word} as a good word to 'spellfile', like with 112 |zg|. Without count the first name is used, with a 113 count of two the second entry, etc. 114 115:spe[llgood]! {word} Add {word} as a good word to the internal word list, 116 like with |zG|. 117 118 *:spellw* *:spellwrong* 119:[count]spellw[rong] {word} 120 Add {word} as a wrong (bad) word to 'spellfile', as 121 with |zw|. Without count the first name is used, with 122 a count of two the second entry, etc. 123 124:spellw[rong]! {word} Add {word} as a wrong (bad) word to the internal word 125 list, like with |zW|. 126 127:[count]spellu[ndo] {word} *:spellu* *:spellundo* 128 Like |zuw|. [count] used as with |:spellgood|. 129 130:spellu[ndo]! {word} Like |zuW|. [count] used as with |:spellgood|. 131 132 133After adding a word to 'spellfile' with the above commands its associated 134".spl" file will automatically be updated and reloaded. If you change 135'spellfile' manually you need to use the |:mkspell| command. This sequence of 136commands mostly works well: > 137 :edit <file in 'spellfile'> 138< (make changes to the spell file) > 139 :mkspell! % 140 141More details about the 'spellfile' format below |spell-wordlist-format|. 142 143 *internal-wordlist* 144The internal word list is used for all buffers where 'spell' is set. It is 145not stored, it is lost when you exit Vim. It is also cleared when 'encoding' 146is set. 147 148 149Finding suggestions for bad words: 150 *z=* 151z= For the word under/after the cursor suggest correctly 152 spelled words. This also works to find alternatives 153 for a word that is not highlighted as a bad word, 154 e.g., when the word after it is bad. 155 In Visual mode the highlighted text is taken as the 156 word to be replaced. 157 The results are sorted on similarity to the word being 158 replaced. 159 This may take a long time. Hit CTRL-C when you get 160 bored. 161 162 If the command is used without a count the 163 alternatives are listed and you can enter the number 164 of your choice or press <Enter> if you don't want to 165 replace. You can also use the mouse to click on your 166 choice (only works if the mouse can be used in Normal 167 mode and when there are no line wraps). Click on the 168 first line (the header) to cancel. 169 170 The suggestions listed normally replace a highlighted 171 bad word. Sometimes they include other text, in that 172 case the replaced text is also listed after a "<". 173 174 If a count is used that suggestion is used, without 175 prompting. For example, "1z=" always takes the first 176 suggestion. 177 178 If 'verbose' is non-zero a score will be displayed 179 with the suggestions to indicate the likeliness to the 180 badly spelled word (the higher the score the more 181 different). 182 When a word was replaced the redo command "." will 183 repeat the word replacement. This works like "ciw", 184 the good word and <Esc>. This does NOT work for Thai 185 and other languages without spaces between words. 186 187 *:spellr* *:spellrepall* *E752* *E753* 188:spellr[epall] Repeat the replacement done by |z=| for all matches 189 with the replaced word in the current window. 190 191In Insert mode, when the cursor is after a badly spelled word, you can use 192CTRL-X s to find suggestions. This works like Insert mode completion. Use 193CTRL-N to use the next suggestion, CTRL-P to go back. |i_CTRL-X_s| 194 195The 'spellsuggest' option influences how the list of suggestions is generated 196and sorted. See |'spellsuggest'|. 197 198The 'spellcapcheck' option is used to check the first word of a sentence 199starts with a capital. This doesn't work for the first word in the file. 200When there is a line break right after a sentence the highlighting of the next 201line may be postponed. Use |CTRL-L| when needed. Also see |set-spc-auto| for 202how it can be set automatically when 'spelllang' is set. 203 204Vim counts the number of times a good word is encountered. This is used to 205sort the suggestions: words that have been seen before get a small bonus, 206words that have been seen often get a bigger bonus. The COMMON item in the 207affix file can be used to define common words, so that this mechanism also 208works in a new or short file |spell-COMMON|. 209 210============================================================================== 2112. Remarks on spell checking *spell-remarks* 212 213PERFORMANCE 214 215Vim does on-the-fly spell checking. To make this work fast the word list is 216loaded in memory. Thus this uses a lot of memory (1 Mbyte or more). There 217might also be a noticeable delay when the word list is loaded, which happens 218when 'spell' is set and when 'spelllang' is set while 'spell' was already set. 219To minimize the delay each word list is only loaded once, it is not deleted 220when 'spelllang' is made empty or 'spell' is reset. When 'encoding' is set 221all the word lists are reloaded, thus you may notice a delay then too. 222 223 224REGIONS 225 226A word may be spelled differently in various regions. For example, English 227comes in (at least) these variants: 228 229 en all regions 230 en_au Australia 231 en_ca Canada 232 en_gb Great Britain 233 en_nz New Zealand 234 en_us USA 235 236Words that are not used in one region but are used in another region are 237highlighted with SpellLocal |hl-SpellLocal|. 238 239Always use lowercase letters for the language and region names. 240 241When adding a word with |zg| or another command it's always added for all 242regions. You can change that by manually editing the 'spellfile'. See 243|spell-wordlist-format|. Note that the regions as specified in the files in 244'spellfile' are only used when all entries in 'spelllang' specify the same 245region (not counting files specified by their .spl name). 246 247 *spell-german* 248Specific exception: For German these special regions are used: 249 de all German words accepted 250 de_de old and new spelling 251 de_19 old spelling 252 de_20 new spelling 253 de_at Austria 254 de_ch Switzerland 255 256 *spell-russian* 257Specific exception: For Russian these special regions are used: 258 ru all Russian words accepted 259 ru_ru "IE" letter spelling 260 ru_yo "YO" letter spelling 261 262 *spell-yiddish* 263Yiddish requires using "utf-8" encoding, because of the special characters 264used. If you are using latin1 Vim will use transliterated (romanized) Yiddish 265instead. If you want to use transliterated Yiddish with utf-8 use "yi-tr". 266In a table: 267 'encoding' 'spelllang' 268 utf-8 yi Yiddish 269 latin1 yi transliterated Yiddish 270 utf-8 yi-tr transliterated Yiddish 271 272 273SPELL FILES *spell-load* 274 275Vim searches for spell files in the "spell" subdirectory of the directories in 276'runtimepath'. The name is: LL.EEE.spl, where: 277 LL the language name 278 EEE the value of 'encoding' 279 280The value for "LL" comes from 'spelllang', but excludes the region name. 281Examples: 282 'spelllang' LL ~ 283 en_us en 284 en-rare en-rare 285 medical_ca medical 286 287Only the first file is loaded, the one that is first in 'runtimepath'. If 288this succeeds then additionally files with the name LL.EEE.add.spl are loaded. 289All the ones that are found are used. 290 291If no spell file is found the |SpellFileMissing| autocommand event is 292triggered. This may trigger the |spellfile.vim| plugin to offer you 293downloading the spell file. 294 295Additionally, the files related to the names in 'spellfile' are loaded. These 296are the files that |zg| and |zw| add good and wrong words to. 297 298Exceptions: 299- Vim uses "latin1" when 'encoding' is "iso-8859-15". The euro sign doesn't 300 matter for spelling. 301- When no spell file for 'encoding' is found "ascii" is tried. This only 302 works for languages where nearly all words are ASCII, such as English. It 303 helps when 'encoding' is not "latin1", such as iso-8859-2, and English text 304 is being edited. For the ".add" files the same name as the found main 305 spell file is used. 306 307For example, with these values: 308 'runtimepath' is "~/.vim,/usr/share/vim70,~/.vim/after" 309 'encoding' is "iso-8859-2" 310 'spelllang' is "pl" 311 312Vim will look for: 3131. ~/.vim/spell/pl.iso-8859-2.spl 3142. /usr/share/vim70/spell/pl.iso-8859-2.spl 3153. ~/.vim/spell/pl.iso-8859-2.add.spl 3164. /usr/share/vim70/spell/pl.iso-8859-2.add.spl 3175. ~/.vim/after/spell/pl.iso-8859-2.add.spl 318 319This assumes 1. is not found and 2. is found. 320 321If 'encoding' is "latin1" Vim will look for: 3221. ~/.vim/spell/pl.latin1.spl 3232. /usr/share/vim70/spell/pl.latin1.spl 3243. ~/.vim/after/spell/pl.latin1.spl 3254. ~/.vim/spell/pl.ascii.spl 3265. /usr/share/vim70/spell/pl.ascii.spl 3276. ~/.vim/after/spell/pl.ascii.spl 328 329This assumes none of them are found (Polish doesn't make sense when leaving 330out the non-ASCII characters). 331 332Spelling for EBCDIC is currently not supported. 333 334A spell file might not be available in the current 'encoding'. See 335|spell-mkspell| about how to create a spell file. Converting a spell file 336with "iconv" will NOT work! 337 338 *spell-sug-file* *E781* 339If there is a file with exactly the same name as the ".spl" file but ending in 340".sug", that file will be used for giving better suggestions. It isn't loaded 341before suggestions are made to reduce memory use. 342 343 *E758* *E759* *E778* *E779* *E780* *E782* 344When loading a spell file Vim checks that it is properly formatted. If you 345get an error the file may be truncated, modified or intended for another Vim 346version. 347 348 349SPELLFILE CLEANUP *spellfile-cleanup* 350 351The |zw| command turns existing entries in 'spellfile' into comment lines. 352This avoids having to write a new file every time, but results in the file 353only getting longer, never shorter. To clean up the comment lines in all 354".add" spell files do this: > 355 :runtime spell/cleanadd.vim 356 357This deletes all comment lines, except the ones that start with "##". Use 358"##" lines to add comments that you want to keep. 359 360You can invoke this script as often as you like. A variable is provided to 361skip updating files that have been changed recently. Set it to the number of 362seconds that has passed since a file was changed before it will be cleaned. 363For example, to clean only files that were not changed in the last hour: > 364 let g:spell_clean_limit = 60 * 60 365The default is one second. 366 367 368WORDS 369 370Vim uses a fixed method to recognize a word. This is independent of 371'iskeyword', so that it also works in help files and for languages that 372include characters like '-' in 'iskeyword'. The word characters do depend on 373'encoding'. 374 375The table with word characters is stored in the main .spl file. Therefore it 376matters what the current locale is when generating it! A .add.spl file does 377not contain a word table though. 378 379For a word that starts with a digit the digit is ignored, unless the word as a 380whole is recognized. Thus if "3D" is a word and "D" is not then "3D" is 381recognized as a word, but if "3D" is not a word then only the "D" is marked as 382bad. Hex numbers in the form 0x12ab and 0X12AB are recognized. 383 384 385WORD COMBINATIONS 386 387It is possible to spell-check words that include a space. This is used to 388recognize words that are invalid when used by themselves, e.g. for "et al.". 389It can also be used to recognize "the the" and highlight it. 390 391The number of spaces is irrelevant. In most cases a line break may also 392appear. However, this makes it difficult to find out where to start checking 393for spelling mistakes. When you make a change to one line and only that line 394is redrawn Vim won't look in the previous line, thus when "et" is at the end 395of the previous line "al." will be flagged as an error. And when you type 396"the<CR>the" the highlighting doesn't appear until the first line is redrawn. 397Use |CTRL-L| to redraw right away. "[s" will also stop at a word combination 398with a line break. 399 400When encountering a line break Vim skips characters such as '*', '>' and '"', 401so that comments in C, shell and Vim code can be spell checked. 402 403 404SYNTAX HIGHLIGHTING *spell-syntax* 405 406Files that use syntax highlighting can specify where spell checking should be 407done: 408 4091. everywhere default 4102. in specific items use "contains=@Spell" 4113. everywhere but specific items use "contains=@NoSpell" 412 413For the second method adding the @NoSpell cluster will disable spell checking 414again. This can be used, for example, to add @Spell to the comments of a 415program, and add @NoSpell for items that shouldn't be checked. 416Also see |:syn-spell| for text that is not in a syntax item. 417 418 419VIM SCRIPTS 420 421If you want to write a Vim script that does something with spelling, you may 422find these functions useful: 423 424 spellbadword() find badly spelled word at the cursor 425 spellsuggest() get list of spelling suggestions 426 soundfold() get the sound-a-like version of a word 427 428 429SETTING 'spellcapcheck' AUTOMATICALLY *set-spc-auto* 430 431After the 'spelllang' option has been set successfully, Vim will source the 432files "spell/LANG.vim" in 'runtimepath'. "LANG" is the value of 'spelllang' 433up to the first comma, dot or underscore. This can be used to set options 434specifically for the language, especially 'spellcapcheck'. 435 436The distribution includes a few of these files. Use this command to see what 437they do: > 438 :next $VIMRUNTIME/spell/*.vim 439 440Note that the default scripts don't set 'spellcapcheck' if it was changed from 441the default value. This assumes the user prefers another value then. 442 443 444DOUBLE SCORING *spell-double-scoring* 445 446The 'spellsuggest' option can be used to select "double" scoring. This 447mechanism is based on the principle that there are two kinds of spelling 448mistakes: 449 4501. You know how to spell the word, but mistype something. This results in a 451 small editing distance (character swapped/omitted/inserted) and possibly a 452 word that sounds completely different. 453 4542. You don't know how to spell the word and type something that sounds right. 455 The edit distance can be big but the word is similar after sound-folding. 456 457Since scores for these two mistakes will be very different we use a list 458for each and mix them. 459 460The sound-folding is slow and people that know the language won't make the 461second kind of mistakes. Therefore 'spellsuggest' can be set to select the 462preferred method for scoring the suggestions. 463 464============================================================================== 4653. Generating a spell file *spell-mkspell* 466 467Vim uses a binary file format for spelling. This greatly speeds up loading 468the word list and keeps it small. 469 *.aff* *.dic* *Myspell* 470You can create a Vim spell file from the .aff and .dic files that Myspell 471uses. Myspell is used by OpenOffice.org and Mozilla. The OpenOffice .oxt 472files are zip files which contain the .aff and .dic files. You should be able 473to find them here: 474 http://extensions.services.openoffice.org/dictionary 475The older, OpenOffice 2 files may be used if this doesn't work: 476 http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Dictionaries 477You can also use a plain word list. The results are the same, the choice 478depends on what word lists you can find. 479 480If you install Aap (from www.a-a-p.org) you can use the recipes in the 481runtime/spell/??/ directories. Aap will take care of downloading the files, 482apply patches needed for Vim and build the .spl file. 483 484Make sure your current locale is set properly, otherwise Vim doesn't know what 485characters are upper/lower case letters. If the locale isn't available (e.g., 486when using an MS-Windows codepage on Unix) add tables to the .aff file 487|spell-affix-chars|. If the .aff file doesn't define a table then the word 488table of the currently active spelling is used. If spelling is not active 489then Vim will try to guess. 490 491 *:mksp* *:mkspell* 492:mksp[ell][!] [-ascii] {outname} {inname} ... 493 Generate a Vim spell file from word lists. Example: > 494 :mkspell /tmp/nl nl_NL.words 495< *E751* 496 When {outname} ends in ".spl" it is used as the output 497 file name. Otherwise it should be a language name, 498 such as "en", without the region name. The file 499 written will be "{outname}.{encoding}.spl", where 500 {encoding} is the value of the 'encoding' option. 501 502 When the output file already exists [!] must be used 503 to overwrite it. 504 505 When the [-ascii] argument is present, words with 506 non-ascii characters are skipped. The resulting file 507 ends in "ascii.spl". 508 509 The input can be the Myspell format files {inname}.aff 510 and {inname}.dic. If {inname}.aff does not exist then 511 {inname} is used as the file name of a plain word 512 list. 513 514 Multiple {inname} arguments can be given to combine 515 regions into one Vim spell file. Example: > 516 :mkspell ~/.vim/spell/en /tmp/en_US /tmp/en_CA /tmp/en_AU 517< This combines the English word lists for US, CA and AU 518 into one en.spl file. 519 Up to eight regions can be combined. *E754* *E755* 520 The REP and SAL items of the first .aff file where 521 they appear are used. |spell-REP| |spell-SAL| 522 523 This command uses a lot of memory, required to find 524 the optimal word tree (Polish, Italian and Hungarian 525 require several hundred Mbyte). The final result will 526 be much smaller, because compression is used. To 527 avoid running out of memory compression will be done 528 now and then. This can be tuned with the 'mkspellmem' 529 option. 530 531 After the spell file was written and it was being used 532 in a buffer it will be reloaded automatically. 533 534:mksp[ell] [-ascii] {name}.{enc}.add 535 Like ":mkspell" above, using {name}.{enc}.add as the 536 input file and producing an output file in the same 537 directory that has ".spl" appended. 538 539:mksp[ell] [-ascii] {name} 540 Like ":mkspell" above, using {name} as the input file 541 and producing an output file in the same directory 542 that has ".{enc}.spl" appended. 543 544Vim will report the number of duplicate words. This might be a mistake in the 545list of words. But sometimes it is used to have different prefixes and 546suffixes for the same basic word to avoid them combining (e.g. Czech uses 547this). If you want Vim to report all duplicate words set the 'verbose' 548option. 549 550Since you might want to change a Myspell word list for use with Vim the 551following procedure is recommended: 552 5531. Obtain the xx_YY.aff and xx_YY.dic files from Myspell. 5542. Make a copy of these files to xx_YY.orig.aff and xx_YY.orig.dic. 5553. Change the xx_YY.aff and xx_YY.dic files to remove bad words, add missing 556 words, define word characters with FOL/LOW/UPP, etc. The distributed 557 "*.diff" files can be used. 5584. Start Vim with the right locale and use |:mkspell| to generate the Vim 559 spell file. 5605. Try out the spell file with ":set spell spelllang=xx" if you wrote it in 561 a spell directory in 'runtimepath', or ":set spelllang=xx.enc.spl" if you 562 wrote it somewhere else. 563 564When the Myspell files are updated you can merge the differences: 5651. Obtain the new Myspell files as xx_YY.new.aff and xx_UU.new.dic. 5662. Use Vimdiff to see what changed: > 567 vimdiff xx_YY.orig.dic xx_YY.new.dic 5683. Take over the changes you like in xx_YY.dic. 569 You may also need to change xx_YY.aff. 5704. Rename xx_YY.new.dic to xx_YY.orig.dic and xx_YY.new.aff to xx_YY.new.aff. 571 572 573SPELL FILE VERSIONS *E770* *E771* *E772* 574 575Spell checking is a relatively new feature in Vim, thus it's possible that the 576.spl file format will be changed to support more languages. Vim will check 577the validity of the spell file and report anything wrong. 578 579 E771: Old spell file, needs to be updated ~ 580This spell file is older than your Vim. You need to update the .spl file. 581 582 E772: Spell file is for newer version of Vim ~ 583This means the spell file was made for a later version of Vim. You need to 584update Vim. 585 586 E770: Unsupported section in spell file ~ 587This means the spell file was made for a later version of Vim and contains a 588section that is required for the spell file to work. In this case it's 589probably a good idea to upgrade your Vim. 590 591 592SPELL FILE DUMP 593 594If for some reason you want to check what words are supported by the currently 595used spelling files, use this command: 596 597 *:spelldump* *:spelld* 598:spelld[ump] Open a new window and fill it with all currently valid 599 words. Compound words are not included. 600 Note: For some languages the result may be enormous, 601 causing Vim to run out of memory. 602 603:spelld[ump]! Like ":spelldump" and include the word count. This is 604 the number of times the word was found while 605 updating the screen. Words that are in COMMON items 606 get a starting count of 10. 607 608The format of the word list is used |spell-wordlist-format|. You should be 609able to read it with ":mkspell" to generate one .spl file that includes all 610the words. 611 612When all entries to 'spelllang' use the same regions or no regions at all then 613the region information is included in the dumped words. Otherwise only words 614for the current region are included and no "/regions" line is generated. 615 616Comment lines with the name of the .spl file are used as a header above the 617words that were generated from that .spl file. 618 619 620SPELL FILE MISSING *spell-SpellFileMissing* *spellfile.vim* 621 622If the spell file for the language you are using is not available, you will 623get an error message. But if the "spellfile.vim" plugin is active it will 624offer you to download the spell file. Just follow the instructions, it will 625ask you where to write the file (there must be a writable directory in 626'runtimepath' for this). 627 628The plugin has a default place where to look for spell files, on the Vim ftp 629server. If you want to use another location or another protocol, set the 630g:spellfile_URL variable to the directory that holds the spell files. The 631|netrw| plugin is used for getting the file, look there for the specific 632syntax of the URL. Example: > 633 let g:spellfile_URL = 'http://ftp.vim.org/vim/runtime/spell' 634You may need to escape special characters. 635 636The plugin will only ask about downloading a language once. If you want to 637try again anyway restart Vim, or set g:spellfile_URL to another value (e.g., 638prepend a space). 639 640To avoid using the "spellfile.vim" plugin do this in your vimrc file: > 641 642 let loaded_spellfile_plugin = 1 643 644Instead of using the plugin you can define a |SpellFileMissing| autocommand to 645handle the missing file yourself. You can use it like this: > 646 647 :au SpellFileMissing * call Download_spell_file(expand('<amatch>')) 648 649Thus the <amatch> item contains the name of the language. Another important 650value is 'encoding', since every encoding has its own spell file. With two 651exceptions: 652- For ISO-8859-15 (latin9) the name "latin1" is used (the encodings only 653 differ in characters not used in dictionary words). 654- The name "ascii" may also be used for some languages where the words use 655 only ASCII letters for most of the words. 656 657The default "spellfile.vim" plugin uses this autocommand, if you define your 658autocommand afterwards you may want to use ":au! SpellFileMissing" to overrule 659it. If you define your autocommand before the plugin is loaded it will notice 660this and not do anything. 661 *E797* 662Note that the SpellFileMissing autocommand must not change or destroy the 663buffer the user was editing. 664 665============================================================================== 6664. Spell file format *spell-file-format* 667 668This is the format of the files that are used by the person who creates and 669maintains a word list. 670 671Note that we avoid the word "dictionary" here. That is because the goal of 672spell checking differs from writing a dictionary (as in the book). For 673spelling we need a list of words that are OK, thus should not be highlighted. 674Person and company names will not appear in a dictionary, but do appear in a 675word list. And some old words are rarely used while they are common 676misspellings. These do appear in a dictionary but not in a word list. 677 678There are two formats: A straight list of words and a list using affix 679compression. The files with affix compression are used by Myspell (Mozilla 680and OpenOffice.org). This requires two files, one with .aff and one with .dic 681extension. 682 683 684FORMAT OF STRAIGHT WORD LIST *spell-wordlist-format* 685 686The words must appear one per line. That is all that is required. 687 688Additionally the following items are recognized: 689 690- Empty and blank lines are ignored. 691 692 # comment ~ 693- Lines starting with a # are ignored (comment lines). 694 695 /encoding=utf-8 ~ 696- A line starting with "/encoding=", before any word, specifies the encoding 697 of the file. After the second '=' comes an encoding name. This tells Vim 698 to setup conversion from the specified encoding to 'encoding'. Thus you can 699 use one word list for several target encodings. 700 701 /regions=usca ~ 702- A line starting with "/regions=" specifies the region names that are 703 supported. Each region name must be two ASCII letters. The first one is 704 region 1. Thus "/regions=usca" has region 1 "us" and region 2 "ca". 705 In an addition word list the region names should be equal to the main word 706 list! 707 708- Other lines starting with '/' are reserved for future use. The ones that 709 are not recognized are ignored. You do get a warning message, so that you 710 know something won't work. 711 712- A "/" may follow the word with the following items: 713 = Case must match exactly. 714 ? Rare word. 715 ! Bad (wrong) word. 716 digit A region in which the word is valid. If no regions are 717 specified the word is valid in all regions. 718 719Example: 720 721 # This is an example word list comment 722 /encoding=latin1 encoding of the file 723 /regions=uscagb regions "us", "ca" and "gb" 724 example word for all regions 725 blah/12 word for regions "us" and "ca" 726 vim/! bad word 727 Campbell/?3 rare word in region 3 "gb" 728 's mornings/= keep-case word 729 730Note that when "/=" is used the same word with all upper-case letters is not 731accepted. This is different from a word with mixed case that is automatically 732marked as keep-case, those words may appear in all upper-case letters. 733 734 735FORMAT WITH .AFF AND .DIC FILES *aff-dic-format* 736 737There are two files: the basic word list and an affix file. The affix file 738specifies settings for the language and can contain affixes. The affixes are 739used to modify the basic words to get the full word list. This significantly 740reduces the number of words, especially for a language like Polish. This is 741called affix compression. 742 743The basic word list and the affix file are combined with the ":mkspell" 744command and results in a binary spell file. All the preprocessing has been 745done, thus this file loads fast. The binary spell file format is described in 746the source code (src/spell.c). But only developers need to know about it. 747 748The preprocessing also allows us to take the Myspell language files and modify 749them before the Vim word list is made. The tools for this can be found in the 750"src/spell" directory. 751 752The format for the affix and word list files is based on what Myspell uses 753(the spell checker of Mozilla and OpenOffice.org). A description can be found 754here: 755 http://lingucomponent.openoffice.org/affix.readme ~ 756Note that affixes are case sensitive, this isn't obvious from the description. 757 758Vim supports quite a few extras. They are described below |spell-affix-vim|. 759Attempts have been made to keep this compatible with other spell checkers, so 760that the same files can often be used. One other project that offers more 761than Myspell is Hunspell ( http://hunspell.sf.net ). 762 763 764WORD LIST FORMAT *spell-dic-format* 765 766A short example, with line numbers: 767 768 1 1234 ~ 769 2 aan ~ 770 3 Als ~ 771 4 Etten-Leur ~ 772 5 et al. ~ 773 6 's-Gravenhage ~ 774 7 's-Gravenhaags ~ 775 8 # word that differs between regions ~ 776 9 kado/1 ~ 777 10 cadeau/2 ~ 778 11 TCP,IP ~ 779 12 /the S affix may add a 's' ~ 780 13 bedel/S ~ 781 782The first line contains the number of words. Vim ignores it, but you do get 783an error message if it's not there. *E760* 784 785What follows is one word per line. White space at the end of the line is 786ignored, all other white space matters. The encoding is specified in the 787affix file |spell-SET|. 788 789Comment lines start with '#' or '/'. See the example lines 8 and 12. Note 790that putting a comment after a word is NOT allowed: 791 792 someword # comment that causes an error! ~ 793 794After the word there is an optional slash and flags. Most of these flags are 795letters that indicate the affixes that can be used with this word. These are 796specified with SFX and PFX lines in the .aff file, see |spell-SFX| and 797|spell-PFX|. Vim allows using other flag types with the FLAG item in the 798affix file |spell-FLAG|. 799 800When the word only has lower-case letters it will also match with the word 801starting with an upper-case letter. 802 803When the word includes an upper-case letter, this means the upper-case letter 804is required at this position. The same word with a lower-case letter at this 805position will not match. When some of the other letters are upper-case it will 806not match either. 807 808The word with all upper-case characters will always be OK, 809 810 word list matches does not match ~ 811 als als Als ALS ALs AlS aLs aLS 812 Als Als ALS als ALs AlS aLs aLS 813 ALS ALS als Als ALs AlS aLs aLS 814 AlS AlS ALS als Als ALs aLs aLS 815 816The KEEPCASE affix ID can be used to specifically match a word with identical 817case only, see below |spell-KEEPCASE|. 818 819Note: in line 5 to 7 non-word characters are used. You can include any 820character in a word. When checking the text a word still only matches when it 821appears with a non-word character before and after it. For Myspell a word 822starting with a non-word character probably won't work. 823 824In line 12 the word "TCP/IP" is defined. Since the slash has a special 825meaning the comma is used instead. This is defined with the SLASH item in the 826affix file, see |spell-SLASH|. Note that without this SLASH item the word 827will be "TCP,IP". 828 829 830AFFIX FILE FORMAT *spell-aff-format* *spell-affix-vim* 831 832 *spell-affix-comment* 833Comment lines in the .aff file start with a '#': 834 835 # comment line ~ 836 837Items with a fixed number of arguments can be followed by a comment. But only 838if none of the arguments can contain white space. The comment must start with 839a "#" character. Example: 840 841 KEEPCASE = # fix case for words with this flag ~ 842 843 844ENCODING *spell-SET* 845 846The affix file can be in any encoding that is supported by "iconv". However, 847in some cases the current locale should also be set properly at the time 848|:mkspell| is invoked. Adding FOL/LOW/UPP lines removes this requirement 849|spell-FOL|. 850 851The encoding should be specified before anything where the encoding matters. 852The encoding applies both to the affix file and the dictionary file. It is 853done with a SET line: 854 855 SET utf-8 ~ 856 857The encoding can be different from the value of the 'encoding' option at the 858time ":mkspell" is used. Vim will then convert everything to 'encoding' and 859generate a spell file for 'encoding'. If some of the used characters to not 860fit in 'encoding' you will get an error message. 861 *spell-affix-mbyte* 862When using a multi-byte encoding it's possible to use more different affix 863flags. But Myspell doesn't support that, thus you may not want to use it 864anyway. For compatibility use an 8-bit encoding. 865 866 867INFORMATION 868 869These entries in the affix file can be used to add information to the spell 870file. There are no restrictions on the format, but they should be in the 871right encoding. 872 873 *spell-NAME* *spell-VERSION* *spell-HOME* 874 *spell-AUTHOR* *spell-EMAIL* *spell-COPYRIGHT* 875 NAME Name of the language 876 VERSION 1.0.1 with fixes 877 HOME http://www.myhome.eu 878 AUTHOR John Doe 879 EMAIL john AT Doe DOT net 880 COPYRIGHT LGPL 881 882These fields are put in the .spl file as-is. The |:spellinfo| command can be 883used to view the info. 884 885 *:spellinfo* *:spelli* 886:spelli[nfo] Display the information for the spell file(s) used for 887 the current buffer. 888 889 890CHARACTER TABLES 891 *spell-affix-chars* 892When using an 8-bit encoding the affix file should define what characters are 893word characters. This is because the system where ":mkspell" is used may not 894support a locale with this encoding and isalpha() won't work. For example 895when using "cp1250" on Unix. 896 *E761* *E762* *spell-FOL* 897 *spell-LOW* *spell-UPP* 898Three lines in the affix file are needed. Simplistic example: 899 900 FOL ��� ~ 901 LOW ��� ~ 902 UPP ��� ~ 903 904All three lines must have exactly the same number of characters. 905 906The "FOL" line specifies the case-folded characters. These are used to 907compare words while ignoring case. For most encodings this is identical to 908the lower case line. 909 910The "LOW" line specifies the characters in lower-case. Mostly it's equal to 911the "FOL" line. 912 913The "UPP" line specifies the characters with upper-case. That is, a character 914is upper-case where it's different from the character at the same position in 915"FOL". 916 917An exception is made for the German sharp s �. The upper-case version is 918"SS". In the FOL/LOW/UPP lines it should be included, so that it's recognized 919as a word character, but use the � character in all three. 920 921ASCII characters should be omitted, Vim always handles these in the same way. 922When the encoding is UTF-8 no word characters need to be specified. 923 924 *E763* 925Vim allows you to use spell checking for several languages in the same file. 926You can list them in the 'spelllang' option. As a consequence all spell files 927for the same encoding must use the same word characters, otherwise they can't 928be combined without errors. If you get a warning that the word tables differ 929you may need to generate the .spl file again with |:mkspell|. Check the FOL, 930LOW and UPP lines in the used .aff file. 931 932The XX.ascii.spl spell file generated with the "-ascii" argument will not 933contain the table with characters, so that it can be combine with spell files 934for any encoding. The .add.spl files also do not contain the table. 935 936 937MID-WORD CHARACTERS 938 *spell-midword* 939Some characters are only to be considered word characters if they are used in 940between two ordinary word characters. An example is the single quote: It is 941often used to put text in quotes, thus it can't be recognized as a word 942character, but when it appears in between word characters it must be part of 943the word. This is needed to detect a spelling error such as they'are. That 944should be they're, but since "they" and "are" are words themselves that would 945go unnoticed. 946 947These characters are defined with MIDWORD in the .aff file. Example: 948 949 MIDWORD '- ~ 950 951 952FLAG TYPES *spell-FLAG* 953 954Flags are used to specify the affixes that can be used with a word and for 955other properties of the word. Normally single-character flags are used. This 956limits the number of possible flags, especially for 8-bit encodings. The FLAG 957item can be used if more affixes are to be used. Possible values: 958 959 FLAG long use two-character flags 960 FLAG num use numbers, from 1 up to 65000 961 FLAG caplong use one-character flags without A-Z and two-character 962 flags that start with A-Z 963 964With "FLAG num" the numbers in a list of affixes need to be separated with a 965comma: "234,2143,1435". This method is inefficient, but useful if the file is 966generated with a program. 967 968When using "caplong" the two-character flags all start with a capital: "Aa", 969"B1", "BB", etc. This is useful to use one-character flags for the most 970common items and two-character flags for uncommon items. 971 972Note: When using utf-8 only characters up to 65000 may be used for flags. 973 974Note: even when using "num" or "long" the number of flags available to 975compounding and prefixes is limited to about 250. 976 977 978AFFIXES 979 *spell-PFX* *spell-SFX* 980The usual PFX (prefix) and SFX (suffix) lines are supported (see the Myspell 981documentation or the Aspell manual: 982http://aspell.net/man-html/Affix-Compression.html). 983 984Summary: 985 SFX L Y 2 ~ 986 SFX L 0 re [^x] ~ 987 SFX L 0 ro x ~ 988 989The first line is a header and has four fields: 990 SFX {flag} {combine} {count} 991 992{flag} The name used for the suffix. Mostly it's a single letter, 993 but other characters can be used, see |spell-FLAG|. 994 995{combine} Can be 'Y' or 'N'. When 'Y' then the word plus suffix can 996 also have a prefix. When 'N' then a prefix is not allowed. 997 998{count} The number of lines following. If this is wrong you will get 999 an error message. 1000 1001For PFX the fields are exactly the same. 1002 1003The basic format for the following lines is: 1004 SFX {flag} {strip} {add} {condition} {extra} 1005 1006{flag} Must be the same as the {flag} used in the first line. 1007 1008{strip} Characters removed from the basic word. There is no check if 1009 the characters are actually there, only the length is used (in 1010 bytes). This better match the {condition}, otherwise strange 1011 things may happen. If the {strip} length is equal to or 1012 longer than the basic word the suffix won't be used. 1013 When {strip} is 0 (zero) then nothing is stripped. 1014 1015{add} Characters added to the basic word, after removing {strip}. 1016 Optionally there is a '/' followed by flags. The flags apply 1017 to the word plus affix. See |spell-affix-flags| 1018 1019{condition} A simplistic pattern. Only when this matches with a basic 1020 word will the suffix be used for that word. This is normally 1021 for using one suffix letter with different {add} and {strip} 1022 fields for words with different endings. 1023 When {condition} is a . (dot) there is no condition. 1024 The pattern may contain: 1025 - Literal characters. 1026 - A set of characters in []. [abc] matches a, b and c. 1027 A dash is allowed for a range [a-c], but this is 1028 Vim-specific. 1029 - A set of characters that starts with a ^, meaning the 1030 complement of the specified characters. [^abc] matches any 1031 character but a, b and c. 1032 1033{extra} Optional extra text: 1034 # comment Comment is ignored 1035 - Hunspell uses this, ignored 1036 1037For PFX the fields are the same, but the {strip}, {add} and {condition} apply 1038to the start of the word. 1039 1040Note: Myspell ignores any extra text after the relevant info. Vim requires 1041this text to start with a "#" so that mistakes don't go unnoticed. Example: 1042 1043 SFX F 0 in [^i]n # Spion > Spionin ~ 1044 SFX F 0 nen in # Bauerin > Bauerinnen ~ 1045 1046Apparently Myspell allows an affix name to appear more than once. Since this 1047might also be a mistake, Vim checks for an extra "S". The affix files for 1048Myspell that use this feature apparently have this flag. Example: 1049 1050 SFX a Y 1 S ~ 1051 SFX a 0 an . ~ 1052 1053 SFX a Y 2 S ~ 1054 SFX a 0 en . ~ 1055 SFX a 0 on . ~ 1056 1057 1058AFFIX FLAGS *spell-affix-flags* 1059 1060This is a feature that comes from Hunspell: The affix may specify flags. This 1061works similar to flags specified on a basic word. The flags apply to the 1062basic word plus the affix (but there are restrictions). Example: 1063 1064 SFX S Y 1 ~ 1065 SFX S 0 s . ~ 1066 1067 SFX A Y 1 ~ 1068 SFX A 0 able/S . ~ 1069 1070When the dictionary file contains "drink/AS" then these words are possible: 1071 1072 drink 1073 drinks uses S suffix 1074 drinkable uses A suffix 1075 drinkables uses A suffix and then S suffix 1076 1077Generally the flags of the suffix are added to the flags of the basic word, 1078both are used for the word plus suffix. But the flags of the basic word are 1079only used once for affixes, except that both one prefix and one suffix can be 1080used when both support combining. 1081 1082Specifically, the affix flags can be used for: 1083- Suffixes on suffixes, as in the example above. This works once, thus you 1084 can have two suffixes on a word (plus one prefix). 1085- Making the word with the affix rare, by using the |spell-RARE| flag. 1086- Exclude the word with the affix from compounding, by using the 1087 |spell-COMPOUNDFORBIDFLAG| flag. 1088- Allow the word with the affix to be part of a compound word on the side of 1089 the affix with the |spell-COMPOUNDPERMITFLAG|. 1090- Use the NEEDCOMPOUND flag: word plus affix can only be used as part of a 1091 compound word. |spell-NEEDCOMPOUND| 1092- Compound flags: word plus affix can be part of a compound word at the end, 1093 middle, start, etc. The flags are combined with the flags of the basic 1094 word. |spell-compound| 1095- NEEDAFFIX: another affix is needed to make a valid word. 1096- CIRCUMFIX, as explained just below. 1097 1098 1099CIRCUMFIX *spell-CIRCUMFIX* 1100 1101The CIRCUMFIX flag means a prefix and suffix must be added at the same time. 1102If a prefix has the CIRCUMFIX flag than only suffixes with the CIRCUMFIX flag 1103can be added, and the other way around. 1104An alternative is to only specify the suffix, and give the that suffix two 1105flags: The required prefix and the NEEDAFFIX flag. |spell-NEEDAFFIX| 1106 1107 1108PFXPOSTPONE *spell-PFXPOSTPONE* 1109 1110When an affix file has very many prefixes that apply to many words it's not 1111possible to build the whole word list in memory. This applies to Hebrew (a 1112list with all words is over a Gbyte). In that case applying prefixes must be 1113postponed. This makes spell checking slower. It is indicated by this keyword 1114in the .aff file: 1115 1116 PFXPOSTPONE ~ 1117 1118Only prefixes without a chop string and without flags can be postponed. 1119Prefixes with a chop string or with flags will still be included in the word 1120list. An exception if the chop string is one character and equal to the last 1121character of the added string, but in lower case. Thus when the chop string 1122is used to allow the following word to start with an upper case letter. 1123 1124 1125WORDS WITH A SLASH *spell-SLASH* 1126 1127The slash is used in the .dic file to separate the basic word from the affix 1128letters and other flags. Unfortunately, this means you cannot use a slash in 1129a word. Thus "TCP/IP" is not a word but "TCP with the flags "IP". To include 1130a slash in the word put a backslash before it: "TCP\/IP". In the rare case 1131you want to use a backslash inside a word you need to use two backslashes. 1132Any other use of the backslash is reserved for future expansion. 1133 1134 1135KEEP-CASE WORDS *spell-KEEPCASE* 1136 1137In the affix file a KEEPCASE line can be used to define the affix name used 1138for keep-case words. Example: 1139 1140 KEEPCASE = ~ 1141 1142This flag is not supported by Myspell. It has the meaning that case matters. 1143This can be used if the word does not have the first letter in upper case at 1144the start of a sentence. Example: 1145 1146 word list matches does not match ~ 1147 's morgens/= 's morgens 'S morgens 's Morgens 'S MORGENS 1148 's Morgens 's Morgens 'S MORGENS 'S morgens 's morgens 1149 1150The flag can also be used to avoid that the word matches when it is in all 1151upper-case letters. 1152 1153 1154RARE WORDS *spell-RARE* 1155 1156In the affix file a RARE line can be used to define the affix name used for 1157rare words. Example: 1158 1159 RARE ? ~ 1160 1161Rare words are highlighted differently from bad words. This is to be used for 1162words that are correct for the language, but are hardly ever used and could be 1163a typing mistake anyway. When the same word is found as good it won't be 1164highlighted as rare. 1165 1166This flag can also be used on an affix, so that a basic word is not rare but 1167the basic word plus affix is rare |spell-affix-flags|. However, if the word 1168also appears as a good word in another way (e.g., in another region) it won't 1169be marked as rare. 1170 1171 1172BAD WORDS *spell-BAD* 1173 1174In the affix file a BAD line can be used to define the affix name used for 1175bad words. Example: 1176 1177 BAD ! ~ 1178 1179This can be used to exclude words that would otherwise be good. For example 1180"the the" in the .dic file: 1181 1182 the the/! ~ 1183 1184Once a word has been marked as bad it won't be undone by encountering the same 1185word as good. 1186 1187The flag also applies to the word with affixes, thus this can be used to mark 1188a whole bunch of related words as bad. 1189 1190 *spell-FORBIDDENWORD* 1191FORBIDDENWORD can be used just like BAD. For compatibility with Hunspell. 1192 1193 *spell-NEEDAFFIX* 1194The NEEDAFFIX flag is used to require that a word is used with an affix. The 1195word itself is not a good word (unless there is an empty affix). Example: 1196 1197 NEEDAFFIX + ~ 1198 1199 1200COMPOUND WORDS *spell-compound* 1201 1202A compound word is a longer word made by concatenating words that appear in 1203the .dic file. To specify which words may be concatenated a character is 1204used. This character is put in the list of affixes after the word. We will 1205call this character a flag here. Obviously these flags must be different from 1206any affix IDs used. 1207 1208 *spell-COMPOUNDFLAG* 1209The Myspell compatible method uses one flag, specified with COMPOUNDFLAG. All 1210words with this flag combine in any order. This means there is no control 1211over which word comes first. Example: 1212 COMPOUNDFLAG c ~ 1213 1214 *spell-COMPOUNDRULE* 1215A more advanced method to specify how compound words can be formed uses 1216multiple items with multiple flags. This is not compatible with Myspell 3.0. 1217Let's start with an example: 1218 COMPOUNDRULE c+ ~ 1219 COMPOUNDRULE se ~ 1220 1221The first line defines that words with the "c" flag can be concatenated in any 1222order. The second line defines compound words that are made of one word with 1223the "s" flag and one word with the "e" flag. With this dictionary: 1224 bork/c ~ 1225 onion/s ~ 1226 soup/e ~ 1227 1228You can make these words: 1229 bork 1230 borkbork 1231 borkborkbork 1232 (etc.) 1233 onion 1234 soup 1235 onionsoup 1236 1237The COMPOUNDRULE item may appear multiple times. The argument is made out of 1238one or more groups, where each group can be: 1239 one flag e.g., c 1240 alternate flags inside [] e.g., [abc] 1241Optionally this may be followed by: 1242 * the group appears zero or more times, e.g., sm*e 1243 + the group appears one or more times, e.g., c+ 1244 1245This is similar to the regexp pattern syntax (but not the same!). A few 1246examples with the sequence of word flags they require: 1247 COMPOUNDRULE x+ x xx xxx etc. 1248 COMPOUNDRULE yz yz 1249 COMPOUNDRULE x+z xz xxz xxxz etc. 1250 COMPOUNDRULE yx+ yx yxx yxxx etc. 1251 1252 COMPOUNDRULE [abc]z az bz cz 1253 COMPOUNDRULE [abc]+z az aaz abaz bz baz bcbz cz caz cbaz etc. 1254 COMPOUNDRULE a[xyz]+ ax axx axyz ay ayx ayzz az azy azxy etc. 1255 COMPOUNDRULE sm*e se sme smme smmme etc. 1256 COMPOUNDRULE s[xyz]*e se sxe sxye sxyxe sye syze sze szye szyxe etc. 1257 1258A specific example: Allow a compound to be made of two words and a dash: 1259 In the .aff file: 1260 COMPOUNDRULE sde ~ 1261 NEEDAFFIX x ~ 1262 COMPOUNDWORDMAX 3 ~ 1263 COMPOUNDMIN 1 ~ 1264 In the .dic file: 1265 start/s ~ 1266 end/e ~ 1267 -/xd ~ 1268 1269This allows for the word "start-end", but not "startend". 1270 1271An additional implied rule is that, without further flags, a word with a 1272prefix cannot be compounded after another word, and a word with a suffix 1273cannot be compounded with a following word. Thus the affix cannot appear 1274on the inside of a compound word. This can be changed with the 1275|spell-COMPOUNDPERMITFLAG|. 1276 1277 *spell-NEEDCOMPOUND* 1278The NEEDCOMPOUND flag is used to require that a word is used as part of a 1279compound word. The word itself is not a good word. Example: 1280 1281 NEEDCOMPOUND & ~ 1282 1283 *spell-ONLYINCOMPOUND* 1284The ONLYINCOMPOUND does exactly the same as NEEDCOMPOUND. Supported for 1285compatibility with Hunspell. 1286 1287 *spell-COMPOUNDMIN* 1288The minimal character length of a word used for compounding is specified with 1289COMPOUNDMIN. Example: 1290 COMPOUNDMIN 5 ~ 1291 1292When omitted there is no minimal length. Obviously you could just leave out 1293the compound flag from short words instead, this feature is present for 1294compatibility with Myspell. 1295 1296 *spell-COMPOUNDWORDMAX* 1297The maximum number of words that can be concatenated into a compound word is 1298specified with COMPOUNDWORDMAX. Example: 1299 COMPOUNDWORDMAX 3 ~ 1300 1301When omitted there is no maximum. It applies to all compound words. 1302 1303To set a limit for words with specific flags make sure the items in 1304COMPOUNDRULE where they appear don't allow too many words. 1305 1306 *spell-COMPOUNDSYLMAX* 1307The maximum number of syllables that a compound word may contain is specified 1308with COMPOUNDSYLMAX. Example: 1309 COMPOUNDSYLMAX 6 ~ 1310 1311This has no effect if there is no SYLLABLE item. Without COMPOUNDSYLMAX there 1312is no limit on the number of syllables. 1313 1314If both COMPOUNDWORDMAX and COMPOUNDSYLMAX are defined, a compound word is 1315accepted if it fits one of the criteria, thus is either made from up to 1316COMPOUNDWORDMAX words or contains up to COMPOUNDSYLMAX syllables. 1317 1318 *spell-COMPOUNDFORBIDFLAG* 1319The COMPOUNDFORBIDFLAG specifies a flag that can be used on an affix. It 1320means that the word plus affix cannot be used in a compound word. Example: 1321 affix file: 1322 COMPOUNDFLAG c ~ 1323 COMPOUNDFORBIDFLAG x ~ 1324 SFX a Y 2 ~ 1325 SFX a 0 s . ~ 1326 SFX a 0 ize/x . ~ 1327 dictionary: 1328 word/c ~ 1329 util/ac ~ 1330 1331This allows for "wordutil" and "wordutils" but not "wordutilize". 1332Note: this doesn't work for postponed prefixes yet. 1333 1334 *spell-COMPOUNDPERMITFLAG* 1335The COMPOUNDPERMITFLAG specifies a flag that can be used on an affix. It 1336means that the word plus affix can also be used in a compound word in a way 1337where the affix ends up halfway the word. Without this flag that is not 1338allowed. 1339Note: this doesn't work for postponed prefixes yet. 1340 1341 *spell-COMPOUNDROOT* 1342The COMPOUNDROOT flag is used for words in the dictionary that are already a 1343compound. This means it counts for two words when checking the compounding 1344rules. Can also be used for an affix to count the affix as a compounding 1345word. 1346 1347 *spell-CHECKCOMPOUNDPATTERN* 1348CHECKCOMPOUNDPATTERN is used to define patterns that, when matching at the 1349position where two words are compounded together forbids the compound. 1350For example: 1351 CHECKCOMPOUNDPATTERN o e ~ 1352 1353This forbids compounding if the first word ends in "o" and the second word 1354starts with "e". 1355 1356The arguments must be plain text, no patterns are actually supported, despite 1357the item name. Case is always ignored. 1358 1359The Hunspell feature to use three arguments and flags is not supported. 1360 1361 *spell-SYLLABLE* 1362The SYLLABLE item defines characters or character sequences that are used to 1363count the number of syllables in a word. Example: 1364 SYLLABLE a�e�i�o���u���y/aa/au/ea/ee/ei/ie/oa/oe/oo/ou/uu/ui ~ 1365 1366Before the first slash is the set of characters that are counted for one 1367syllable, also when repeated and mixed, until the next character that is not 1368in this set. After the slash come sequences of characters that are counted 1369for one syllable. These are preferred over using characters from the set. 1370With the example "ideeen" has three syllables, counted by "i", "ee" and "e". 1371 1372Only case-folded letters need to be included. 1373 1374Another way to restrict compounding was mentioned above: Adding the 1375|spell-COMPOUNDFORBIDFLAG| flag to an affix causes all words that are made 1376with that affix not be be used for compounding. 1377 1378 1379UNLIMITED COMPOUNDING *spell-NOBREAK* 1380 1381For some languages, such as Thai, there is no space in between words. This 1382looks like all words are compounded. To specify this use the NOBREAK item in 1383the affix file, without arguments: 1384 NOBREAK ~ 1385 1386Vim will try to figure out where one word ends and a next starts. When there 1387are spelling mistakes this may not be quite right. 1388 1389 1390 *spell-COMMON* 1391Common words can be specified with the COMMON item. This will give better 1392suggestions when editing a short file. Example: 1393 1394 COMMON the of to and a in is it you that he was for on are ~ 1395 1396The words must be separated by white space, up to 25 per line. 1397When multiple regions are specified in a ":mkspell" command the common words 1398for all regions are combined and used for all regions. 1399 1400 *spell-NOSPLITSUGS* 1401This item indicates that splitting a word to make suggestions is not a good 1402idea. Split-word suggestions will appear only when there are few similar 1403words. 1404 1405 NOSPLITSUGS ~ 1406 1407 *spell-NOSUGGEST* 1408The flag specified with NOSUGGEST can be used for words that will not be 1409suggested. Can be used for obscene words. 1410 1411 NOSUGGEST % ~ 1412 1413 1414REPLACEMENTS *spell-REP* 1415 1416In the affix file REP items can be used to define common mistakes. This is 1417used to make spelling suggestions. The items define the "from" text and the 1418"to" replacement. Example: 1419 1420 REP 4 ~ 1421 REP f ph ~ 1422 REP ph f ~ 1423 REP k ch ~ 1424 REP ch k ~ 1425 1426The first line specifies the number of REP lines following. Vim ignores the 1427number, but it must be there (for compatibility with Myspell). 1428 1429Don't include simple one-character replacements or swaps. Vim will try these 1430anyway. You can include whole words if you want to, but you might want to use 1431the "file:" item in 'spellsuggest' instead. 1432 1433You can include a space by using an underscore: 1434 1435 REP the_the the ~ 1436 1437 1438SIMILAR CHARACTERS *spell-MAP* *E783* 1439 1440In the affix file MAP items can be used to define letters that are very much 1441alike. This is mostly used for a letter with different accents. This is used 1442to prefer suggestions with these letters substituted. Example: 1443 1444 MAP 2 ~ 1445 MAP e���� ~ 1446 MAP u���� ~ 1447 1448The first line specifies the number of MAP lines following. Vim ignores the 1449number, but the line must be there. 1450 1451Each letter must appear in only one of the MAP items. It's a bit more 1452efficient if the first letter is ASCII or at least one without accents. 1453 1454 1455.SUG FILE *spell-NOSUGFILE* 1456 1457When soundfolding is specified in the affix file then ":mkspell" will normally 1458produce a .sug file next to the .spl file. This file is used to find 1459suggestions by their sound-a-like form quickly. At the cost of a lot of 1460memory (the amount depends on the number of words, |:mkspell| will display an 1461estimate when it's done). 1462 1463To avoid producing a .sug file use this item in the affix file: 1464 1465 NOSUGFILE ~ 1466 1467Users can simply omit the .sug file if they don't want to use it. 1468 1469 1470SOUND-A-LIKE *spell-SAL* 1471 1472In the affix file SAL items can be used to define the sounds-a-like mechanism 1473to be used. The main items define the "from" text and the "to" replacement. 1474Simplistic example: 1475 1476 SAL CIA X ~ 1477 SAL CH X ~ 1478 SAL C K ~ 1479 SAL K K ~ 1480 1481There are a few rules and this can become quite complicated. An explanation 1482how it works can be found in the Aspell manual: 1483http://aspell.net/man-html/Phonetic-Code.html. 1484 1485There are a few special items: 1486 1487 SAL followup true ~ 1488 SAL collapse_result true ~ 1489 SAL remove_accents true ~ 1490 1491"1" has the same meaning as "true". Any other value means "false". 1492 1493 1494SIMPLE SOUNDFOLDING *spell-SOFOFROM* *spell-SOFOTO* 1495 1496The SAL mechanism is complex and slow. A simpler mechanism is mapping all 1497characters to another character, mapping similar sounding characters to the 1498same character. At the same time this does case folding. You can not have 1499both SAL items and simple soundfolding. 1500 1501There are two items required: one to specify the characters that are mapped 1502and one that specifies the characters they are mapped to. They must have 1503exactly the same number of characters. Example: 1504 1505 SOFOFROM abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ ~ 1506 SOFOTO ebctefghejklnnepkrstevvkesebctefghejklnnepkrstevvkes ~ 1507 1508In the example all vowels are mapped to the same character 'e'. Another 1509method would be to leave out all vowels. Some characters that sound nearly 1510the same and are often mixed up, such as 'm' and 'n', are mapped to the same 1511character. Don't do this too much, all words will start looking alike. 1512 1513Characters that do not appear in SOFOFROM will be left out, except that all 1514white space is replaced by one space. Sequences of the same character in 1515SOFOFROM are replaced by one. 1516 1517You can use the |soundfold()| function to try out the results. Or set the 1518'verbose' option to see the score in the output of the |z=| command. 1519 1520 1521UNSUPPORTED ITEMS *spell-affix-not-supported* 1522 1523These items appear in the affix file of other spell checkers. In Vim they are 1524ignored, not supported or defined in another way. 1525 1526ACCENT (Hunspell) *spell-ACCENT* 1527 Use MAP instead. |spell-MAP| 1528 1529BREAK (Hunspell) *spell-BREAK* 1530 Define break points. Unclear how it works exactly. 1531 Not supported. 1532 1533CHECKCOMPOUNDCASE (Hunspell) *spell-CHECKCOMPOUNDCASE* 1534 Disallow uppercase letters at compound word boundaries. 1535 Not supported. 1536 1537CHECKCOMPOUNDDUP (Hunspell) *spell-CHECKCOMPOUNDDUP* 1538 Disallow using the same word twice in a compound. Not 1539 supported. 1540 1541CHECKCOMPOUNDREP (Hunspell) *spell-CHECKCOMPOUNDREP* 1542 Something about using REP items and compound words. Not 1543 supported. 1544 1545CHECKCOMPOUNDTRIPLE (Hunspell) *spell-CHECKCOMPOUNDTRIPLE* 1546 Forbid three identical characters when compounding. Not 1547 supported. 1548 1549COMPLEXPREFIXES (Hunspell) *spell-COMPLEXPREFIXES* 1550 Enables using two prefixes. Not supported. 1551 1552COMPOUND (Hunspell) *spell-COMPOUND* 1553 This is one line with the count of COMPOUND items, followed by 1554 that many COMPOUND lines with a pattern. 1555 Remove the first line with the count and rename the other 1556 items to COMPOUNDRULE |spell-COMPOUNDRULE| 1557 1558COMPOUNDFIRST (Hunspell) *spell-COMPOUNDFIRST* 1559 Use COMPOUNDRULE instead. |spell-COMPOUNDRULE| 1560 1561COMPOUNDBEGIN (Hunspell) *spell-COMPOUNDBEGIN* 1562 Use COMPOUNDRULE instead. |spell-COMPOUNDRULE| 1563 1564COMPOUNDEND (Hunspell) *spell-COMPOUNDEND* 1565 Use COMPOUNDRULE instead. |spell-COMPOUNDRULE| 1566 1567COMPOUNDMIDDLE (Hunspell) *spell-COMPOUNDMIDDLE* 1568 Use COMPOUNDRULE instead. |spell-COMPOUNDRULE| 1569 1570COMPOUNDRULES (Hunspell) *spell-COMPOUNDRULES* 1571 Number of COMPOUNDRULE lines following. Ignored, but the 1572 argument must be a number. 1573 1574COMPOUNDSYLLABLE (Hunspell) *spell-COMPOUNDSYLLABLE* 1575 Use SYLLABLE and COMPOUNDSYLMAX instead. |spell-SYLLABLE| 1576 |spell-COMPOUNDSYLMAX| 1577 1578KEY (Hunspell) *spell-KEY* 1579 Define characters that are close together on the keyboard. 1580 Used to give better suggestions. Not supported. 1581 1582LANG (Hunspell) *spell-LANG* 1583 This specifies language-specific behavior. This actually 1584 moves part of the language knowledge into the program, 1585 therefore Vim does not support it. Each language property 1586 must be specified separately. 1587 1588LEMMA_PRESENT (Hunspell) *spell-LEMMA_PRESENT* 1589 Only needed for morphological analysis. 1590 1591MAXNGRAMSUGS (Hunspell) *spell-MAXNGRAMSUGS* 1592 Set number of n-gram suggestions. Not supported. 1593 1594PSEUDOROOT (Hunspell) *spell-PSEUDOROOT* 1595 Use NEEDAFFIX instead. |spell-NEEDAFFIX| 1596 1597SUGSWITHDOTS (Hunspell) *spell-SUGSWITHDOTS* 1598 Adds dots to suggestions. Vim doesn't need this. 1599 1600SYLLABLENUM (Hunspell) *spell-SYLLABLENUM* 1601 Not supported. 1602 1603TRY (Myspell, Hunspell, others) *spell-TRY* 1604 Vim does not use the TRY item, it is ignored. For making 1605 suggestions the actual characters in the words are used, that 1606 is much more efficient. 1607 1608WORDCHARS (Hunspell) *spell-WORDCHARS* 1609 Used to recognize words. Vim doesn't need it, because there 1610 is no need to separate words before checking them (using a 1611 trie instead of a hashtable). 1612 1613 vim:tw=78:sw=4:ts=8:ft=help:norl: 1614