{
    "mode": "man",
    "parameter": "ispell",
    "section": "1",
    "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/ispell/1/json",
    "generated": "2026-08-15T13:48:42Z",
    "synopsis": "ispell [common-flags] [-M|-N] [-Lcontext] [-V] files\nispell [common-flags] -l\nispell [common-flags] [-f file] [-s] [-a|-A]\nispell [-d file] [-w chars] -c\nispell [-d file] [-w chars] -e[e]\nispell [-d file] -D\nispell -v[v]\ncommon-flags:\n[-t] [-n] [-H] [-o] [-b] [-x] [-B] [-C] [-P] [-m] [-S] [-d file] [-p file] [-w  chars]\n[-W n] [-T type] [-kname list] [-F program]\nHelper programs:\nbuildhash [-s] dict-file affix-file hash-file\nbuildhash -s count affix-file\nmunchlist [-l aff-file] [-c conv-file] [-T suffix]\n[-s hash-file] [-D] [-v] [-w chars] [files]\nfindaffix [-p|-s] [-f] [-c] [-m min] [-M max] [-e elim]\n[-t tabchar] [-l low] [files]\ntryaffix [-p|-s] [-c] expanded-file affix[+addition] ...\nicombine [-T type] [-w chars] [aff-file]\nijoin [-s|-u] join-options file1 file2",
    "sections": {
        "NAME": {
            "content": "ispell,  buildhash,  munchlist,  findaffix,  tryaffix, icombine, ijoin - Interactive spelling\nchecking\n",
            "subsections": []
        },
        "SYNOPSIS": {
            "content": "ispell [common-flags] [-M|-N] [-Lcontext] [-V] files\nispell [common-flags] -l\nispell [common-flags] [-f file] [-s] [-a|-A]\nispell [-d file] [-w chars] -c\nispell [-d file] [-w chars] -e[e]\nispell [-d file] -D\nispell -v[v]\n\ncommon-flags:\n[-t] [-n] [-H] [-o] [-b] [-x] [-B] [-C] [-P] [-m] [-S] [-d file] [-p file] [-w  chars]\n[-W n] [-T type] [-kname list] [-F program]\n\nHelper programs:\n\nbuildhash [-s] dict-file affix-file hash-file\nbuildhash -s count affix-file\n\nmunchlist [-l aff-file] [-c conv-file] [-T suffix]\n[-s hash-file] [-D] [-v] [-w chars] [files]\n\nfindaffix [-p|-s] [-f] [-c] [-m min] [-M max] [-e elim]\n[-t tabchar] [-l low] [files]\n\ntryaffix [-p|-s] [-c] expanded-file affix[+addition] ...\n\nicombine [-T type] [-w chars] [aff-file]\n\nijoin [-s|-u] join-options file1 file2\n",
            "subsections": []
        },
        "DESCRIPTION": {
            "content": "Ispell  is fashioned after the spell program from ITS (called ispell on Twenex systems.)  The\nmost common usage is \"ispell filename\".  In this case, ispell will display  each  word  which\ndoes  not  appear  in the dictionary at the top of the screen and allow you to change it.  If\nthere are \"near misses\" in the dictionary (words which differ by  only  a  single  letter,  a\nmissing  or  extra  letter, a pair of transposed letters, or a missing space or hyphen), then\nthey are also displayed on following lines.  As well as \"near  misses\",  ispell  may  display\nother  guesses  at ways to make the word from a known root, with each guess preceded by ques‐\ntion marks.  Finally, the line containing the word and the previous line are printed  at  the\nbottom  of  the  screen.   If  your terminal can display in reverse video, the word itself is\nhighlighted.  You have the option of replacing the word completely, or choosing  one  of  the\nsuggested words.  Commands are single characters as follows (case is ignored):\n\nR      Replace the misspelled word completely.\n\nSpace  Accept the word this time only.\n\nA      Accept the word for the rest of this ispell session.\n\nI      Accept  the  word, capitalized as it is in the file, and update private dictio‐\nnary.\n\nU      Accept the word, and add an uncapitalized (actually, all lower-case) version to\nthe private dictionary.\n\n0–n    Replace with one of the suggested words.\n\nL      Look up words in system dictionary (controlled by  the  WORDS  compilation  op‐\ntion).\n\nX      Write the rest of this file, ignoring misspellings, and start next file.\n\nQ      Exit immediately and leave the file unchanged.\n\n!      Shell escape.\n\n^L     Redraw screen.\n\n^Z     Suspend ispell.\n\n?      Give help screen.\n\nIf  the  -M switch is specified, a one-line mini-menu at the bottom of the screen will summa‐\nrize these options.  Conversely, the -N switch may be used to suppress the  mini-menu.   (The\nminimenu  is  displayed by default if ispell was compiled with the MINIMENU option, but these\ntwo switches will always override the default).\n\nIf the -L flag is given, the specified number is used as the number of lines of context to be\nshown at the bottom of the screen (The default is to calculate the amount  of  context  as  a\ncertain percentage of the screen size).  The amount of context is subject to a system-imposed\nlimit.\n\nIf  the  -V  flag is given, characters that are not in the 7-bit ANSI printable character set\nwill always be displayed in the style of \"cat -v\", even if ispell thinks that  these  charac‐\nters are valid ISO Latin-1 on your system.  This is useful when working with older terminals.\nWithout  this  switch, ispell will display 8-bit characters \"as is\" if they have been defined\nas string characters for the chosen file type.\n\n\"Normal\" mode, as well as the -l, -a, and -A options and interactive mode  (see  below)  also\naccepts the following \"common\" flags on the command line:\n\n-t     The input file is in TeX or LaTeX format.\n\n-n     The input file is in nroff/troff format.\n\n-H     The input file is in SGML/HTML format.  (This should really be -s, but for his‐\ntorical reasons that flag was already taken.)\n\n-o     The  input  file  should  be  treated as ordinary text.  (This could be used to\noverride DEFTEXFLAG.)\n\n-g     The input file is in Debian control file format.  Ispell will ignore everything\noutside the Description(s).\n\n-b     Create a backup file by appending \".bak\" to the name of the input file.\n\n-x     Delete the backup file after spell-checking is finished.\n\n-B     Report run-together words with missing blanks as spelling errors.\n\n-C     Consider run-together words as valid compounds.\n\n-P     Don't generate extra root/affix combinations.\n\n-m     Make possible root/affix combinations that aren't in the dictionary.\n\n-S     Sort the list of guesses by probable correctness.\n\n-d file\nSpecify an alternate dictionary file.  For example, use -d  british  to  choose\n/usr/lib/ispell/british.{aff|hash} instead of your default ispell dictionary.\n\n-p file\nSpecify an alternate personal dictionary.\n\n-w chars\nSpecify additional characters that can be part of a word.\n\n-W n   Specify length of words that are always valid.\n\n-T type\nAssume a given formatter type for all files.\n\nThe  -H,  -n,  -t,  and -o options select whether ispell runs in HTML (-H), nroff/troff (-n),\nTeX/LaTeX (-t), or ordinary text (-o) input mode.  mode.  (The default mode is controlled  by\nthe DEFTEXFLAG installation option, but is normally nroff/troff mode for historical reasons.)\nUnless  overridden by one of the mode-selection switches, TeX/LaTeX mode is automatically se‐\nlected if an input file has the extension \".tex\", and HTML mode is automatically selected  if\nan input file has the extension \".html\" or \".htm\".\n\nIn  HTML  mode, HTML tags delimited by <> signs are skipped, except that the \"ALT=\" construct\nis recognized if it appears with no spaces around the equals sign, and  the  text  inside  is\nspell-checked.\n\nIn  TeX/LaTeX  mode, whenever a backslash (\"\\\") is found, ispell will skip to the next white‐\nspace or TeX/LaTeX delimiter.   Certain  commands  contain  arguments  which  should  not  be\nchecked, such as labels and reference keys as are found in the \\cite command, since they con‐\ntain  arbitrary,  non-word  arguments.   Spell checking is also suppressed when in math mode.\nThus, for example, given\n\n\\chapter {This is a Ckapter} \\cite{SCH86}\n\nispell will find \"Ckapter\" but not \"SCH\".  The -t option does not recognize the  TeX  comment\ncharacter  \"%\",  so  comments  are also spell-checked.  It also assumes correct LaTeX syntax.\nArguments to infrequently used commands and some optional arguments are sometimes checked un‐\nnecessarily.  The bibliography will not be checked if ispell was compiled with IGNOREBIB  de‐\nfined.  Otherwise, the bibliography will be checked but the reference key will not.\n\nReferences  for the tib (if available on your system), bibliography system, that is, text be‐\ntween a ``[.'' or ``<.'' and ``.]'' or ``.>'' will always be ignored in TeX/LaTeX mode.\n\nThe -b and -x options control whether ispell leaves a backup (.bak) file for each input file.\nThe .bak file contains the pre-corrected text.  If there are file opening or writing  errors,\nthe  .bak  file  may  be left for recovery purposes even with the -x option.  The default for\nthis option is controlled by the DEFNOBACKUPFLAG installation option.\n\nThe -B and -C options control how ispell handles run-together words,  such  as  \"notthe\"  for\n\"not the\".  If -B is specified, such words will be considered as errors, and ispell will list\nvariations  with  an  inserted blank or hyphen as possible replacements.  If -C is specified,\nrun-together words will be considered to be valid compounds, so long as both  components  are\nin  the dictionary, and each component is at least as long as a language-dependent minimum (3\ncharacters, by default).  This is useful for languages such as German  and  Norwegian,  where\nmany  compound  words are formed by concatenation.  (Note that compounds formed from three or\nmore root words will still be considered errors).  The default for this option  is  language-\ndependent; in a multi-lingual installation the default may vary depending on which dictionary\nyou choose.  Warning: the -C option can cause ispell to recognize non-words and misspellings.\nUse it with caution!\n\nThe -P and -m options control when ispell automatically generates suggested root/affix combi‐\nnations  for  possible  addition  to your personal dictionary.  (These are the entries in the\n\"guess\" list which are preceded by question marks.)  If -P is  specified,  such  guesses  are\ndisplayed only if ispell cannot generate any possibilities that match the current dictionary.\nIf  -m is specified, such guesses are always displayed.  This can be useful if the dictionary\nhas a limited word list, or a word list with few suffixes.  However, you  should  be  careful\nwhen  using  this option, as it can generate guesses that produce invalid words.  The default\nfor this option is controlled by the dictionary file used.\n\nThe -S option suppresses ispell's normal behavior of sorting the list of possible replacement\nwords.  Some people may prefer this, since it somewhat enhances the probability that the cor‐\nrect word will be low-numbered.\n\nThe -d option is used to specify an alternate hashed dictionary file, other than the default.\nIf the filename does not contain a \"/\", the library directory for the default dictionary file\nis prefixed; thus, to use a dictionary in the local directory \"-d ./xxx.hash\" must  be  used.\nThis  is  useful  to allow dictionaries for alternate languages.  Unlike previous versions of\nispell, a dictionary of /dev/null is invalid, because the dictionary contains the  affix  ta‐\nble.   If  you need an effectively empty dictionary, create a one-entry list with an unlikely\nstring (e.g., \"qqqqq\").\n\nThe -p option is used to specify an alternate personal dictionary file.   If  the  file  name\ndoes  not  begin  with \"/\", $HOME is prefixed.  Also, the shell variable WORDLIST may be set,\nwhich renames the personal dictionary in the same manner.  The  command  line  overrides  any\nWORDLIST  setting.   If neither the -p switch nor the WORDLIST environment variable is given,\nispell will search for a personal dictionary in both the current directory and $HOME,  creat‐\ning one in $HOME if none is found.  The preferred name is constructed by appending \".ispell\"\nto the base name of the hash file.  For example, if you use the English dictionary, your per‐\nsonal  dictionary would be named \".ispellenglish\".  However, if the file \".ispellwords\" ex‐\nists, it will be used as the personal dictionary regardless of the language hash file chosen.\nThis feature is included primarily for backwards compatibility.\n\nIf the -p option is not specified, ispell will look for personal  dictionaries  in  both  the\ncurrent directory and the home directory.  If dictionaries exist in both places, they will be\nmerged.   If any words are added to the personal dictionary, they will be written to the cur‐\nrent directory if a dictionary already existed in that place; otherwise they will be  written\nto the dictionary in the home directory.\n\nThe  -w option may be used to specify characters other than alphabetics which may also appear\nin words.  For instance, -w \"&\" will allow \"AT&T\" to be picked up.  Underscores are useful in\nmany technical documents.  There is an admittedly crude provision in this  option  for  8-bit\ninternational  characters.   Non-printing characters may be specified in the usual way by in‐\nserting a backslash followed by the octal character code; e.g., \"\\014\" for a form feed.   Al‐\nternatively,  if  \"n\" appears in the character string, the (up to) three characters following\nare a DECIMAL code 0–255, for the character.  For example, to include bells and form feeds in\nyour words (an admittedly silly thing to do, but aren't most pedagogical examples):\n\nn007n012\n\nNumeric digits other than the three following \"n\" are simply numeric characters.  Use of  \"n\"\ndoes  not conflict with anything because actual alphabetics have no meaning - alphabetics are\nalready accepted.  Ispell will typically be used with input from a file,  meaning  that  pre‐\nserving  parity  for possible 8 bit characters from the input text is OK.  If you specify the\n-l option, and actually type text from the terminal, this may create problems  if  your  stty\nsettings preserve parity.\n\nIt is not possible to use -w with certain characters.  In particular, the flag-marker charac‐\nter  for  the  language (defined in the affix file, but usually \"/\") can never be made into a\nword character.\n\nThe -W option may be used to change the length of words that ispell always accepts as  valid.\nNormally,  ispell will accept all 1-character words as valid, which is equivalent to specify‐\ning \"-W 1.\"  (The default for this switch is actually controlled by the MINWORD  installation\noption,  so  it  may vary at your installation.)  If you want all words to be checked against\nthe dictionary, regardless of length, you might want to specify \"-W 0\".  On the  other  hand,\nif your document specifies a lot of three-letter acronyms, you would specify \"-W 3\" to accept\nall  words  of  three letters or less.  Regardless of the setting of this option, ispell will\nonly generate words that are in the dictionary as suggested replacements for words; this pre‐\nvents the list from becoming too long.  Obviously, this option can be very  dangerous,  since\nshort  misspellings  may be missed.  If you use this option a lot, you should probably make a\nlast pass without it before you publish your document, to protect yourself against errors.\n\nThe -T option is used to specify a default formatter type for use in generating string  char‐\nacters.   This switch overrides the default type determined from the file name.  The type ar‐\ngument may be either one of the unique names defined in the language affix file (e.g., nroff)\nor a file suffix including the dot (e.g., .tex).  If no -T option appears and no type can  be\ndetermined from the file name, the default string character type declared in the language af‐\nfix file will be used.\n\nThe  -k  option  is used to enhance the behavior of certain deformatters.  The name parameter\ngives the name of a deformatter keyword set (see below), and the list parameter gives a  list\nof  one  or  more  keywords that are to be treated specially.  If list begins with a plus (+)\nsign, it is added to the existing keywords; otherwise it replaces the existing keyword  list.\nFor  example,  -ktexskip1 +bibliographystyle adds \"bibliographystyle\" to the TeX skip-1 list,\nwhile -khtmlignore pre,strong replaces the HTML ignore list with  \"pre\"  and  \"strong\".   The\nlists available are:\n\ntexskip1\nTeX/LaTeX  commands that take a single argument that should not be spell-checked, such\nas \"bibliographystyle\".  The default is  \"end\",  \"vspace\",  \"hspace\",  \"cite\",  \"ref\",\n\"parbox\", \"label\", \"input\", \"nocite\", \"include\", \"includeonly\", \"documentstyle\", \"doc‐\numentclass\",  \"usepackage\",  \"selectlanguage\",  \"pagestyle\", \"pagenumbering\", \"hyphen‐\nation\", \"pageref\", and \"psfig\", plus \"bibliography\" in some installations.  These key‐\nwords are case-sensitive.\n\ntexskip2\nTeX/LaTeX commands that take two arguments that should not be spell-checked,  such  as\n\"setlength\".   The  default is \"rule\", \"setcounter\", \"addtocounter\", \"setlength\", \"ad‐\ndtolength\", and \"settowidth\".  These keywords are case-sensitive.\n\nhtmlignore\nHTML tags that delimit text that should not be spell-checked until  the  matching  end\ntag  is  reached.   The  default  is \"code\", \"samp\", \"kbd\", \"pre\", \"listing\", and \"ad‐\ndress\".  These keywords are case-insensitive.  (Note  that  the  content  inside  HTML\ntags, such as HREF=, is not normally checked.)\n\nhtmlcheck\nSubfields  that  should be spell-checked even inside HTML tags.  The default is \"alt\",\nso that the ALT= portion of IMG tags will be spell-checked.  These keywords are  case-\ninsensitive.\n\nAll  of the above keyword lists can also be modified by environment variables whose names are\nthe same as above, except in uppercase, e.g., TEXSKIP1.  The -k switch overrides (or adds to)\nthe environment variables, and the environment variables override or add to the built-in  de‐\nfaults.\n\nThe  -F switch specifies an external deformatter program.  This program should read data from\nits standard input and write to its standard output.  The program must  produce  exactly  one\ncharacter of output for each character of input, or ispell will lose synchronization and cor‐\nrupt  the  output  file.   Whitespace  characters (especially blanks, tabs, and newlines) and\ncharacters that should be spell-checked should be passed through unchanged.  Characters  that\nshould  not  be  spell-checked  should be converted into blanks or other non-word characters.\nFor example, an HTML deformatter might turn all HTML tags into blanks, and also blank out all\ntext delimited by tags such as \"code\" or \"kbd\".\n\nThe -F switch is the preferred way to deformat files for ispell, and eventually  will  become\nthe only way.\n\nIf  ispell  is  invoked without any filenames or mode switches, it enters an interactive mode\ndesigned to let the user check the spelling of  individual  words.   The  program  repeatedly\nprompts  on standard output with \"word:\" and responds with either \"ok\" (possibly with commen‐\ntary), \"not found\", or \"how about\" followed by a list of suggestions.\n\nThe -l or \"list\" option to ispell is used to produce a list  of  misspelled  words  from  the\nstandard input.\n\nThe  -a  option is intended to be used from other programs through a pipe.  In this mode, is‐\npell prints a one-line version identification message, and then begins reading lines  of  in‐\nput.   For  each  input  line,  a single line is written to the standard output for each word\nchecked for spelling on the line.  If the word was found in the main dictionary, or your per‐\nsonal dictionary, then the line contains only a '*'.  If the word was found through affix re‐\nmoval, then the line contains a '+', a space, and the root  word.   If  the  word  was  found\nthrough  compound  formation  (concatenation of two words, controlled by the -C option), then\nthe line contains only a '-'.\n\nIf the word is not in the dictionary, but there are near misses, then the  line  contains  an\n'&',  a space, the misspelled word, a space, the number of near misses, the number of charac‐\nters between the beginning of the line and the beginning of the misspelled word, a colon, an‐\nother space, and a list of the near misses separated by commas  and  spaces.   Following  the\nnear misses (and identified only by the count of near misses), if the word could be formed by\nadding (invalid) affixes to a known root, is a list of suggested derivations, again separated\nby  commas  and spaces.  If there are no near misses at all, the line format is the same, ex‐\ncept that the '&' is replaced by '?' (and the near-miss count is always zero).  The suggested\nderivations following the near misses are in the form:\n\n[prefix+] root [-prefix] [-suffix] [+suffix]\n\n(e.g., \"re+fry-y+ies\" to get \"refries\") where each optional pfx and sfx is a  string.   Also,\neach  near miss or guess is capitalized the same as the input word unless such capitalization\nis invalid; in the latter case each near miss is capitalized correctly according to the  dic‐\ntionary.\n\nFinally,  if  the  word does not appear in the dictionary, and there are no near misses, then\nthe line contains a '#', a space, the misspelled word, a space, and the character offset from\nthe beginning of the line.  Each sentence of text input  is  terminated  with  an  additional\nblank line, indicating that ispell has completed processing the input line.\n\nThese output lines can be summarized as follows:\n\nOK:    *\n\nRoot:  + <root>\n\nCompound:\n-\n\nMiss:  & <original> <count> <offset>: <miss>, <miss>, ..., <guess>, ...\n\nGuess: ? <original> 0 <offset>: <guess>, <guess>, ...\n\nNone:  # <original> <offset>\n\nFor  example,  a  dummy  dictionary containing the words \"fray\", \"Frey\", \"fry\", and \"refried\"\nmight produce the following response to the command \"echo 'frqy refries' | ispell  -a  -m  -d\n./test.hash\":\n(#) International Ispell Version 3.0.05 (beta), 08/10/91\n& frqy 3 0: fray, Frey, fry\n& refries 1 5: refried, re+fry-y+ies\n\nThis  mode is also suitable for interactive use when you want to figure out the spelling of a\nsingle word.\n\nThe -A option works just like -a, except  that  if  a  line  begins  with  the  string  \"&In‐\ncludeFile&\",  the rest of the line is taken as the name of a file to read for further words.\nInput returns to the original file when the include file  is  exhausted.   Inclusion  may  be\nnested  up  to  five  deep.   The key string may be changed with the environment variable IN‐\nCLUDESTRING (the ampersands, if any, must be included).\n\nWhen in the -a mode, ispell will also accept lines of single words prefixed with any of  '*',\n'&',  '@',  '+', '-', '~', '#', '!', '%', '`', or '^'.  A line starting with '*' tells ispell\nto insert the word into the user's dictionary (similar to the I command).   A  line  starting\nwith  '&' tells ispell to insert an all-lowercase version of the word into the user's dictio‐\nnary (similar to the U command).  A line starting with '@' causes ispell to accept this  word\nin  the future (similar to the A command).  A line starting with '+', followed immediately by\ntex or nroff will cause ispell to parse future input according the syntax of that  formatter.\nA  line consisting solely of a '+' will place ispell in TeX/LaTeX mode (similar to the -t op‐\ntion) and '-' returns ispell to nroff/troff mode (but these commands are obsolete).  However,\nthe string character type is not changed; the '~' command must be used to do  this.   A  line\nstarting with '~' causes ispell to set internal parameters (in particular, the default string\ncharacter  type) based on the filename given in the rest of the line.  (A file suffix is suf‐\nficient, but the period must be included.  Instead of a file name or suffix, a  unique  name,\nas  listed  in the language affix file, may be specified.)  However, the formatter parsing is\nnot changed;  the '+' command must be used to change the formatter.  A line prefixed with '#'\nwill cause the personal dictionary to be saved.  A line prefixed with '!' will turn on  terse\nmode (see below), and a line prefixed with '%' will return ispell to normal (non-terse) mode.\nA line prefixed with '`' will turn on verbose-correction mode (see below); this mode can only\nbe disabled by turning on terse mode with '%'.\n\nAny  input  following the prefix characters '+', '-', '#', '!', '%', or '`' is ignored, as is\nany input following the filename on a '~' line.  To allow spell-checking of  lines  beginning\nwith  these  characters,  a  line  starting  with '^' has that character removed before it is\npassed to the spell-checking code.  It is recommended  that  programmatic  interfaces  prefix\nevery data line with an uparrow to protect themselves against future changes in ispell.\n\nTo summarize these:\n\n*      Add to personal dictionary\n\n@      Accept word, but leave out of dictionary\n\n#      Save current personal dictionary\n\n~      Set parameters based on filename\n\n+      Enter TeX mode\n\n-      Exit TeX mode\n\n!      Enter terse mode\n\n%      Exit terse mode\n\n`      Enter verbose-correction mode\n\n^      Spell-check rest of line\n\nIn  terse mode, ispell will not print lines beginning with '*', '+', or '-', all of which in‐\ndicate correct words.  This significantly improves running speed when the driving program  is\ngoing to ignore correct words anyway.\n\nIn verbose-correction mode, ispell includes the original word immediately after the indicator\ncharacter  in output lines beginning with '*', '+', and '-', which simplifies interaction for\nsome programs.\n\nThe -s option is only valid in conjunction with the -a or -A options, and only on BSD-derived\nsystems.  If specified, ispell will stop itself with a SIGTSTP signal after each line of  in‐\nput.  It will not read more input until it receives a SIGCONT signal.  This may be useful for\nhandshaking with certain text editors.\n\nThe  -f  option  is only valid in conjunction with the -a or -A options.  If -f is specified,\nispell will write its results to the given file, rather than to standard output.\n\nThe -v option causes ispell to print its current version identification on the standard  out‐\nput  and exit.  If the switch is doubled, ispell will also print the options that it was com‐\npiled with.\n\nThe -c, -e[1\\n5], and -D options of ispell, are primarily intended for use by  the  munchlist\nshell  script.  The -c switch causes a list of words to be read from the standard input.  For\neach word, a list of possible root words and affixes will be written to the standard  output.\nSome  of  the root words will be invalid and must be filtered from the output by other means;\nthe munchlist script does this.  As an example, the command:\n\necho BOTHER | ispell -c\n\nproduces:\n\nBOTHER BOTHE/R BOTH/R\n\nThe -e switch is the reverse of -c; it expands affix flags to produce a list of  words.   For\nexample, the command:\n\necho BOTH/R | ispell -e\n\nproduces:\n\nBOTH BOTHER\n\nAn  optional  expansion  level  can  also be specified.  A level of 1 (-e1) is the same as -e\nalone.  A level of 2 causes the original root/affix combination to be prepended to the line:\n\nBOTH/R BOTH BOTHER\n\nA level of 3 causes multiple lines to be output, one for each generated word, with the origi‐\nnal root/affix combination followed by the word it creates:\n\nBOTH/R BOTH\nBOTH/R BOTHER\n\nA level of 4 causes a floating-point number to be appended to each of the level-3 lines, giv‐\ning the ratio between the length of the root and the total length of all generated words  in‐\ncluding the root:\n\nBOTH/R BOTH 2.500000\nBOTH/R BOTHER 2.500000\n\nA  level of 5 causes multiple lines to be output, one for each generated word.  If the gener‐\nated word did not use any affixes, the line is just that word.  If one or more  affixes  were\nused,  the  original  root  and the affixes actually used are printed, joined by a plus sign;\nthen the generated word is printed:\n\nBOTH\nBOTH+R BOTHER\n\nFinally, the -D flag causes the affix tables from the dictionary file to be dumped  to  stan‐\ndard output.\n\nIspell  is  aware  of the correct capitalizations of words in the dictionary and in your per‐\nsonal dictionary.  As well as recognizing words that must be capitalized (e.g.,  George)  and\nwords  that  must be all-capitals (e.g., NASA), it can also handle words with \"unusual\" capi‐\ntalization (e.g., \"ITCorp\" or \"TeX\").  If a word is capitalized incorrectly, the list of pos‐\nsibilities will include all acceptable capitalizations.  (More than one capitalization may be\nacceptable; for example, my dictionary lists both \"ITCorp\" and \"ITcorp\".)\n\nNormally, this feature will not cause you surprises, but there is one circumstance  you  need\nto  be aware of.  If you use \"I\" to add a word to your dictionary that is at the beginning of\na sentence (e.g., the first word of this paragraph if \"normally\" were not in the dictionary),\nit will be marked as \"capitalization required\".  A subsequent usage of this word without cap‐\nitalization (e.g., the quoted word in the previous sentence) will be considered a misspelling\nby ispell, and it will suggest the capitalized version.  You must  then  compare  the  actual\nspellings by eye, and then type \"I\" to add the uncapitalized variant to your personal dictio‐\nnary.  You can avoid this problem by using \"U\" to add the original word, rather than \"I\".\n\nThe rules for capitalization are as follows:\n\n(1)    Any word may appear in all capitals, as in headings.\n\n(2)    Any  word  that is in the dictionary in all-lowercase form may appear either in lower‐\ncase or capitalized (as at the beginning of a sentence).\n\n(3)    Any word that has \"funny\" capitalization (i.e., it contains both cases and there is an\nuppercase character besides the first) must appear exactly as in the  dictionary,  ex‐\ncept  as  permitted  by rule (1).  If the word is acceptable in all-lowercase, it must\nappear thus in a dictionary entry.\n",
            "subsections": [
                {
                    "name": "buildhash",
                    "content": "The buildhash program builds hashed dictionary files for later use by ispell.  The  raw  word\nlist (with affix flags) is given in dict-file, and the affix flags are defined by affix-file.\nThe  hashed output is written to hash-file.  The formats of the two input files are described\nin ispell(5).  The -s (silent) option suppresses the usual status messages that  are  written\nto the standard error device.\n"
                },
                {
                    "name": "munchlist",
                    "content": "The munchlist shell script is used to reduce the size of dictionary files, primarily personal\ndictionary  files.   It  is also capable of combining dictionaries from various sources.  The\ngiven files are read (standard input if no arguments are given), reduced to a minimal set  of\nroots and affixes that will match the same list of words, and written to standard output.\n\nInput  for  munchlist contains of raw words (e.g from your personal dictionary files) or root\nand affix combinations (probably generated in earlier munchlist runs).  Each word or root/af‐\nfix combination must be on a separate line.\n\nThe -D (debug) option leaves temporary files around under standard names instead of  deleting\nthem,  so that the script can be debugged.  Warning: on a multiuser system, this can be a se‐\ncurity hole.  To avoid possible destruction of important files, don't run the script as root,\nand set MUNCHDEBUGDIR to the name of a directory that only you can access.\n\nThe -v (verbose) option causes progress messages to be reported to stderr so  you  won't  get\nnervous that munchlist has hung.\n\nIf  the -s (strip) option is specified, words that are in the specified hash-file are removed\nfrom the word list.  This can be useful with personal dictionaries.\n\nThe -l option can be used to specify an alternate affix-file  for  munching  dictionaries  in\nlanguages other than English.\n\nThe  -c  option can be used to convert dictionaries that were built with an older affix file,\nwithout risk of accidentally introducing unintended affix combinations into the dictionary.\n\nThe -T option allows dictionaries to be converted to  a  canonical  string-character  format.\nThe suffix specified is looked up in the affix file (-l switch) to determine the string-char‐\nacter  format  used for the input file; the output always uses the canonical string-character\nformat.  For example, a dictionary collected from TeX source  files  might  be  converted  to\ncanonical format by specifying -T tex.\n\nThe -w option is passed on to ispell.\n"
                },
                {
                    "name": "findaffix",
                    "content": "The  findaffix shell script is an aid to writers of new language descriptions in choosing af‐\nfixes.  The given dictionary files (standard input if none are given) are examined for possi‐\nble prefixes (-p switch) or suffixes (-s switch, the default).  Each commonly-occurring affix\nis presented along with a count of the number of times it appears and an estimate of the num‐\nber of bytes that would be saved in a dictionary hash file if it were added to  the  language\ntable.  Only affixes that generate valid roots (found in the original input) are listed.\n\nIf the \"-c\" option is not given, the output lines are in the following format:\n\nstrip/add/count/bytes\n\nwhere  strip  is the string that should be stripped from a root word before adding the affix,\nadd is the affix to be added, count is a count of the number of  times  that  this  strip/add\ncombination  appears,  and bytes is an estimate of the number of bytes that might be saved in\nthe raw dictionary file if this combination is added to the affix file.  The field  separator\nin  the  output will be the tab character specified by the -t switch;  the default is a slash\n(\"/\").\n\nIf the -c (\"clean output\") option is given, the appearance of the  output  is  made  visually\ncleaner (but harder to post-process) by changing it to:\n\n-strip+add<tab>count<tab>bytes\n\nwhere  strip, add, count, and bytes are as before, and <tab> represents the ASCII tab charac‐\nter.\n\nThe method used to generate possible affixes will also generate  longer  affixes  which  have\ncommon headers or trailers.  For example, the two words \"moth\" and \"mother\" will generate not\nonly  the  obvious  substitution  \"+er\"  but  also \"-h+her\" and \"-th+ther\" (and possibly even\nlonger ones, depending on the value of min).  To prevent cluttering the output with such  af‐\nfixes,  any  affix pair that shares a common header (or, for prefixes, trailer) string longer\nthan elim characters (default 1) will be suppressed.  You may want to set \"elim\" to  a  value\ngreater  than  1  if your language has string characters; usually the need for this parameter\nwill become obvious when you examine the output of your findaffix run.\n\nNormally, the affixes are sorted according to the estimate of bytes saved.  The -f switch may\nbe used to cause the affixes to be sorted by frequency of appearance.\n\nTo save output file space, affixes which occur fewer than 10 times are eliminated; this limit\nmay be changed with the -l switch.  The -M switch specifies a maximum affix  length  (default\n8).   Affixes longer than this will not be reported.  (This saves on temporary disk space and\nmakes the script run faster.)\n\nAffixes which generate stems shorter than 3 characters are suppressed.  (A stem is  the  word\nafter the strip string has been removed, and before the add string has been added.)  This re‐\nduces  both the running time and the size of the output file.  This limit may be changed with\nthe -m switch.  The minimum stem length should only be set to 1 if you have  a  lot  of  free\ntime and disk space (in the range of many days and hundreds of megabytes).\n\nThe  findaffix  script requires a non-blank field-separator character for internal use.  Nor‐\nmally, this character is a slash (\"/\"), but if the slash appears as a character in the  input\nword list, a different character can be specified with the -t switch.\n\nIspell dictionaries should be expanded before being fed to findaffix; in addition, characters\nthat are not in the English alphabet (if any) should be translated to lowercase.\n"
                },
                {
                    "name": "tryaffix",
                    "content": "The  tryaffix  shell  script  is  used to estimate the effectiveness of a proposed prefix (-p\nswitch) or suffix (-s switch, the default) with a given expanded-file.  Only one affix can be\ntried with each execution of tryaffix, although multiple arguments can be  used  to  describe\nvarying forms of the same affix flag (e.g., the D flag for English can add either D or ED de‐\npending  on  whether  a trailing E is already present).  Each word in the expanded dictionary\nthat ends (or begins) with the chosen suffix (or prefix) has that  suffix  (prefix)  removed;\nthe  dictionary  is then searched for root words that match the stripped word.  Normally, all\nmatching roots are written to standard output, but if the -c (count) flag is  given,  only  a\nstatistical summary of the results is written.  The statistics given are a count of words the\naffix  potentially  applies  to and an estimate of the number of dictionary bytes that a flag\nusing the affix would save.  The estimate will be high if the flag generates words  that  are\ncurrently  generated  by other affix flags (e.g., in English, bathers can be generated by ei‐\nther bath/X or bather/S).\n\nThe dictionary file, expanded-file, must already be expanded (using the -e switch of  ispell)\nand  sorted,  and  things  will  usually work best if uppercase has been folded to lower with\n'tr'.\n\nThe affix arguments are things to be stripped from  the  dictionary  file  to  produce  trial\nroots:  for  English,  con (prefix) and ing (suffix) are examples.  The addition parts of the\nargument are letters that would have been stripped off the root before adding the affix.  For\nexample, in English the affix ing normally strips e for words ending in  that  letter  (e.g.,\nlike becomes liking) so we might run:\n\ntryaffix ing ing+e\n\nto cover both cases.\n\nAll  of  the  shell  scripts  contain documentation as commentary at the beginning; sometimes\nthese comments contain useful information beyond the scope of this manual page.\n\nIt is possible to install ispell in such a way as to only support ASCII  range  text  if  de‐\nsired.\n"
                },
                {
                    "name": "icombine",
                    "content": "The  icombine program is a helper for munchlist.  It reads a list of words in dictionary for‐\nmat (roots plus flags) from the standard input, and produces a reduced list on standard  out‐\nput  which  combines common roots found on adjacent entries.  Identical roots which have dif‐\nfering flags will have their flags combined, and roots which have  differing  capitalizations\nwill be combined in a way which only preserves important capitalization information.  The op‐\ntional aff-file specifies a language file which defines the character sets used and the mean‐\nings  of  the  various  flags.   The -T switch can be used to select among alternative string\ncharacter types by giving a dummy suffix that can be found  in  an  altstringtype  statement.\nThe -w switch is identical to the same switch in ispell.\n"
                },
                {
                    "name": "ijoin",
                    "content": "The  ijoin program is a re-implementation of join(1) which handles long lines and 8-bit char‐\nacters correctly.  The -s switch specifies that the sort(1) program used to prepare the input\nto ijoin uses signed comparisons on 8-bit characters; the -u switch  specifies  that  sort(1)\nuses  unsigned comparisons.  All other options and behaviors of join(1) are duplicated as ex‐\nactly as possible based on the manual page, except that ijoin will not handle  newline  as  a\nfield separator.  See the join(1) manual page for more information.\n"
                }
            ]
        },
        "ENVIRONMENT": {
            "content": "DICTIONARY\nDefault dictionary to use, if no -d flag is given.\n\nISPELLCHARSET\nFormatter type or character encoding to use, if none is chosen by a flag option.\n\nWORDLIST\nPersonal dictionary file name\n\nINCLUDESTRING\nCode for file inclusion under the -A option\n\nTMPDIR Directory used for some of munchlist's temporary files\n\nMUNCHDEBUGDIR\nDirectory used to hold the output of munchlists' -D option.\n\nTEXSKIP1\nList of single-argument TeX keywords that ispell should ignore.\n\nTEXSKIP2\nList of two-argument TeX keywords that ispell should ignore.\n\nHTMLIGNORE\nList of HTML keywords that delimit text that should not be spell-checked.\n\nHTMLCHECK\nList of HTML fields that should always be spell-checked, even inside a tag.\n",
            "subsections": []
        },
        "FILES": {
            "content": "/usr/lib/ispell/default.hash\nHashed  dictionary  (may be found in some other local directory, depending on the sys‐\ntem).\n\n/usr/lib/ispell/default.aff\nAffix-definition file for munchlist\n\n/usr/share/dict/words\nFor the Lookup function.\n\n$HOME/.ispellhashfile\nUser's private dictionary\n\n.ispellhashfile\nDirectory-specific private dictionary\n",
            "subsections": []
        },
        "SEE ALSO": {
            "content": "egrep(1), look(1), join(1), sort(1), spell(1), sq(1), tib (if available on your system),  is‐\npell(5), english(5)\n",
            "subsections": []
        },
        "BUGS": {
            "content": "Ispell should understand more troff syntax, and deal more intelligently with contractions.\n\nAlthough  small  personal  dictionaries  are sorted before they are written out, the order of\ncapitalizations of the same word is somewhat random.\n\nWhen the -x flag is specified, ispell will unlink any existing .bak file.\n\nThere are too many flags, and many of them have non-mnemonic names.\n\nThe -e flag should accept mnemonic arguments instead of numeric ones.\n\nMunchlist does not deal very gracefully with dictionaries which  contain  \"non-word\"  charac‐\nters.  Such characters ought to be deleted from the dictionary with a warning message.\n",
            "subsections": []
        },
        "AUTHOR": {
            "content": "Pace  Willisson (pace@mit-vax), 1983, based on the PDP-10 assembly version.  That version was\nwritten by R. E. Gorin in 1971, and later revised by W. E. Matson (1974) and W.  B.  Ackerman\n(1978).\n\nCollected, revised, and enhanced for the Usenet by Walt Buehring, 1987.\n\nTable-driven multi-lingual version by Geoff Kuenning, 1987–88.\n\nLarge dictionaries provided by Bob Devine (vianet!devine).\n\nA complete list of contributors is too large to list here, but is distributed with the ispell\nsources in the file \"Contributors\".\n",
            "subsections": []
        },
        "VERSION": {
            "content": "The version of ispell described by this manual page is International Ispell Version 3.4.06 30\nOct 2023.\n\nlocal                                      ISPELL(1)",
            "subsections": []
        }
    },
    "summary": "ispell,  buildhash,  munchlist,  findaffix,  tryaffix, icombine, ijoin - Interactive spelling checking",
    "flags": [],
    "examples": [],
    "see_also": [
        {
            "name": "egrep",
            "section": "1",
            "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/egrep/1/json"
        },
        {
            "name": "look",
            "section": "1",
            "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/look/1/json"
        },
        {
            "name": "join",
            "section": "1",
            "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/join/1/json"
        },
        {
            "name": "sort",
            "section": "1",
            "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/sort/1/json"
        },
        {
            "name": "spell",
            "section": "1",
            "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/spell/1/json"
        },
        {
            "name": "sq",
            "section": "1",
            "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/sq/1/json"
        },
        {
            "name": "pell",
            "section": "5",
            "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/pell/5/json"
        },
        {
            "name": "english",
            "section": "5",
            "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/english/5/json"
        }
    ],
    "tldr": {
        "source": "official",
        "description": "Interactive spell checking.",
        "examples": [
            {
                "description": "Start an interactive session",
                "command": "ispell"
            },
            {
                "description": "Check for typos in the specified file and interactively apply suggestions",
                "command": "ispell {{path/to/file}}"
            },
            {
                "description": "Display version",
                "command": "ispell -v"
            }
        ]
    }
}