Generate TeX code for a bilingual dictionary from a flat file database.
This system has been used to generate multiple editions of dictionaries for
several dialects of Carrier, the endangered language of a large portion of
the central interior of British Columbia.
Developers
Bill Poser
Organization
Country
Canada
Domain
linguistics - dictionary publishing
Contact
Bill Poser
Email
billposer@alum.mit.edu
Description
A dictionary database consists of four flat files containing records in which fields
are identified by tags, in a format isomorphic to Standard Dictionary Format.
The four files contain: main entries, example sentences with translations, verb roots,
verb stems. This provides modest degree of relativization. Awk scripts controlled by
a makefile do the bulk of the work of generating TeX code for printing dictionaries
containing front matter, a Carrier-English section, an English-Carrier section, a topical
index, an alphabetical root list, a list of roots sorted by English gloss,
an alphabetical list of verb stems, a list of verb stems sorted by root,
an alphabetical list of affixes, a list of affixes sorted by English gloss,
a list of scientific names , a list of placenames, and credits for illustrations.
Awk
gawk
Shell
The awk scripts are executed from a make file.
Platform
GNU/Linux on x86.
Uses
The awk scripts are executed from a makefile by GNU make.
The other program used extensively is the sort utility
msort.
Lines
5500
DevelopmentEffort
The first usable version took no more than a day (plus the time to create the
TeX template into which the generated code is inserted).
MaintenanceEffort
Pure maintenance due to changes in environment, bit rot, etc. has been just about nil.
The effort devoted to adding features very difficult to estimate as it has taken place at
irregular intervals over a period of 15 years.
Current
Status 1=Prototype, 2=Evaluation, 3=Released, 4=No longer supported, 5=Dead
3, I guess. The code is mature but not really released since the author is the
only one who normally uses it.
