Version 1.0 - May 16, 2002.
The Dictionary Server Protocol (DICT
a TCP transaction based query/response protocol that allows a client to
access dictionary definitions from a set of natural language dictionary
databases. It is designed to provide access to multiple databases of
English words. A DICT
server is only an
interface between client programs and the dictionary databases.
is a Perl cgi
which provides browser access to DICT
servers via an HTML form-based interface which can be used to fetch
dictionary definitions and to match whole or partial words and word lists.
The browser-based interface allows selection of servers, available
server-based dictionary databases, and word matching strategies.
The initial browser window presents an HTML input form with 4 buttons:
Setup and Info.
button splits the screen
horizontally into two windows. The HTML input form is placed in the top
window and all results are placed in the bottom window. Word definition
searches are performed using the set of configured databases. All
definitions returned are displayed in the lower half of the browser window.
If no definition is available for the entered word, an automatic
is performed for the word using the
server default spell-checker algorithm
on all available dictionary databases, and a list of possible word spellings
is displayed. The word which best matches the word being looked for may be
selected from the list for definition.
Dictionaries are searched according to the selections made on the Setup screen.
server supports multiple databases,
and the ability to search all of the provided databases using a single
request is given using the special all
The ability to search over some but not all of the databases is provided
by using the Setup
button to select a subset
of databases from thelist of DICT
searches an index for selected
dictionaries, and reports words which were found using a particular
strategy for matching words, as selected in the Setup
servers implement the
strategies. The exact
matches a word exactly, although different servers may treat non-alphanumeric
data differently. The prefix
strategy is similar to
, except that it only compares the first part of the
word. Different servers may implement these algorithms differently.
Other strategies that might be offered by a DICT
server are matches based on substring,
suffix, regular expressions, soundex
, and Levenshtein
algorithms. If the strategy specified is the server default
then the word will be matched using a server-dependent default strategy,
which should be the best strategy available for interactive spell checking,
usually a derivative of the Levenshtein
allows selection of known
servers, configuration of dictionary
databases for define
requests, and selection of the matching
strategy for use by the match
The list of DICT
servers is established
in the cgi
configuration file when the dictionary script is
installed. The list of dictionary databases and matching strategies is
retrieved from the DICT
server each time
The selected server, matching strategy, and dictionary databases are stored
in client-based cookies
, set to expire one year after they were last
set. Browsers must be cookies-enabled
in order to use
queries the DICT
server for information about the server
program name and version, dictionary word count and storage requirements.
This function is provided for completeness. It returns information as
described in RFC 2229.