Subject: Re: bug#6539: ispell-complete-word looks for wrong file (at least on w32)

From: Agustin Martin <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 30 Jun 2010 14:27:47 +0200

> On Wed, Jun 30, 2010 at 01:45:56PM +0200, Lennart Borgman wrote:
> 
> Does not such plain wordlists come with ispell or aspell?

Hi,

No, both ispell and aspell use hashed tables derived from affix rules and
affix-compressed word lists and usually only that hash and affix files are
shipped. Since hashes are endianess-dependent, sometimes (e.g. Debian) 
compressed affix-compressed wordlists are shipped along with the affix 
file and the hash is built on the fly on installation, but full expanded
wordlist is not shipped.  

myspell/hunspell use plain affix-compressed word lists together with the 
associated affix rules file. In a limit case, myspell and hunspell could 
use plain wordlists along with an affix rules file with no affix rules, 
but that means huge wordlists and reduced efficiency, thus affix 
compression is generally used.

> > I think that this bug report can be closed or renamed to something like
> > 'Improve `ispell-alternate-dictionary' docstring'.
> 
> I think the default for ispell-alternate-dictionary should be changed on w32.

Or, more globally, find a good and not confusing name for default personal 
plain wordlist that can be used in every system, be it w32 or not, so it is 
tried first in `ispell-alternate-dictionary', something like

(expand-file-name "~/.personal.words")

Not sure if that syntax works well in w32. Suggestions are welcome.

Cheers,

-- 
Agustin