Table of Contents
wnintro - introduction to WordNet library functions
This section of the WordNet Reference Manual contains manual pages that
describe the WordNet library functions and API.
Functions are organized
into the following categories:
Category | Manual Page | Object File
|
Database Search | wnsearch (3WN) | search.o |
Morphology | morph (3WN)
| morph.o |
Misc. Utility | wnutil (3WN) | wnutil.o |
Binary Search | binsrch
(3WN) | binsrch.o |
The WordNet library is used by all of the searching
interfaces provided with the various WordNet packages. Additional programs
in the system, such as grind(1WN)
, also use functions in this library.
The WordNet library is provided in both source and binary forms (on some
platforms) to allow users to build applications and tools to their own
specifications that utilize the WordNet database. We do not provide programming
support or assistance.
The code conforms to ANSI C standards. Functions
are defined with function prototypes. If you do not have a compiler that
accepts prototypes, you must edit the source code and remove the prototypes
before compiling. gcc(1)
, version 2.95.2 was used to compile all of the Unix
libraries. The same code was compiled on all platforms, using cpp(1)
#ifdef
statements to conditionally compile platform specific code. The platform
specific definitions are:
UNIX | Defined for all Unix operating systems
|
PC | Defined for all Windows operating system |
WINDOWS | Defined
for Windows operating system |
Note that when WINDOWS is defined, PC
is also defined. The redundancy goes back to when we supported both DOS
and Windows.
Not all library functions
are listed below. Missing are mainly functions that are called by documented
ones, or ones that were written for specific applications or tools used
during WordNet development. Data structures are defined in wntypes.h .
- findtheinfo
- Primary search
function for WordNet database. Returns formatted search results in text
buffer. Used by WordNet interfaces to perform requested search.
- findtheinfo_ds
- Primary search function for WordNet database. Returns search results
in linked list data structure.
- is_defined
- Set bit for each search type
that is valid for the search word passed and return bit mask.
- in_wn
- Set
bit for each syntactic category that search word is in.
- index_lookup
- Find
word in index file and return parsed entry in data structure. Input word
must be exact match of string in database. Called by getindex() .
- getindex
- Find word in index file, trying different techniques - replace hyphens
with underscores, replace underscores with hyphens, strip hyphens and
underscores, strip periods.
- read_synset
- Read synset from data file at
byte offset passed and return parsed entry in data structure. Calls parse_synset()
.
- parse_synset
- Read synset at current byte offset in file and return parsed
entry in data structure.
- free_syns
- Free a synset linked list allocated
by findtheinfo_ds() .
- free_synset
- Free a synset structure.
- free_index
- Free an index structure.
- traceptrs_ds
- Recursive search algorithm to trace
a pointer tree and return results in linked list.
- do_trace
- Do requested
search on synset passed returning formatted output in buffer.
- morphinit
- Open exception list files.
- re_morphinit
- Close exception list files and reopen.
- morphstr
- Try to find base form
(lemma) of word or collocation in syntactic category passed. Calls morphword()
for each word in string passed.
- morphword
- Try to find base form (lemma)
of individual word in syntactic category passed.
- wninit
- Top level function to open database files and morphology exception
lists.
- re_wninit
- Top level function to close and reopen database files
and morphology exception lists.
- cntwords
- Count the number of underscore
or space separated words in a string.
- strtolower
- Convert string to lower
case and remove trailing adjective marker if found.
- ToLowerCase
- Convert
string passed to lower case.
- strsubst
- Replace all occurrences of from
with to in str .
- getptrtype
- Return code for pointer type character passed.
- getpos
- Return syntactic category code for string passed.
- getsstype
- Return
synset type code for string passed.
- FmtSynset
- Reconstruct synset string
from synset pointer.
- StrToPos
- Passed string for syntactic category, returns
corresponding integer value.
- GetSynsetForSense
- Return synset for sense
key passed.
- GetDataOffset
- Find synset offset for sense.
- GetPolyCount
- Find
polysemy count for sense passed.
- GetWORD
- Return word part of sense key.
- GetPOS
- Return syntactic category code for sense key passed.
- WNSnsToStr
- Generate sense key for index entry passed.
- GetValidIndexPointer
- Search
for string and/or base form of word in database and return index structure
for word if found.
- GetWNSense
- Return sense number in database for sense
key.
- GetSenseIndex
- Return parsed sense index entry for sense key passed.
- default_display_message
- Default function to use as value of display_message
. Simply returns -1 .
- bin_search
- General purpose binary search function to search for key as first item
on line in sorted file.
- copyfile
- Copy contents from one file to another.
- replace_line
- Replace a line in a sorted file.
- insert_line
- Insert a line
into a sorted file.
- license.h
- Text of WordNet license
in various C data structure formats
- setutil.h
- Functions for creating and
working with sets. Used to perform RELATIVES
search.
- wn.h
- Top level WordNet
include file that includes most others. This should be sufficient for
most applications. Also lists function prototypes for library API.
- wnconsts.h
- Constants used by library functions and applications. Conditionally compiled
code determines default pathnames and buffer sizes for different platforms,.
- wnglobal.h
- External declarations for global variables initialized in wnglobal.c
. These variables are static: they do not change while library code is
run, and they do not influence how the library operates.
- wnhelp.h
- External
declaration for helptext initialized in wnhelp.c .
- wnrtl.h
- External declarations
for global variables and flags used and set by the WordNet library functions
at run-time.
- wntypes.h
- C typedefs for data structures used in library.
All library functions that access the database files expect the files
to be open. The function wninit(3WN)
must be called before other database
access functions such as findtheinfo(3WN)
or read_synset(3WN)
.
Inclusion
of the header file wn.h is usually sufficient, as it includes several
other WordNet header files.
The command line interface is a good example
of a simple application that uses several WordNet library functions.
Many of the library functions are passed or return syntactic category
or synset type information. The following table lists the possible categories
as integer codes, synset type constant names, syntactic category constant
names, single characters and character strings.
Integer | Synset Type
| Syntactic Category | Char | String |
1 | NOUN | NOUN | n | noun |
2 | VERB | VERB | v | verb |
3 | ADJ | ADJ | a | adj |
4 | ADV | ADV | r | adv |
5 | SATELLITE | ADJ | s | n/a |
- WNHOME
- Base directory
for WordNet. Unix default is /usr/local/WordNet-2.0 , Windows default is
C:\Program Files\WordNet\2.0 .
- WNSEARCHDIR
- Directory in which the WordNet
database has been installed. Unix default is WNHOME/dict , Windows default
is WNHOME\dict .
- WNHOME/lib/libwn.a
- WordNet library (Unix)
- WNHOME\lib\wn.lib
- WordNet library (Windows)
- WNHOME/include/*
- header files for use with
WordNet library (Unix)
- WNHOME\include\*
- header files for use with WordNet
library (Windows)
wnintro(1WN)
, binsrch(3WN)
, morph(3WN)
, wnsearch(3WN)
,
wnutil(3WN)
, wnintro(5WN)
, wnintro(7WN)
.
Fellbaum, C. (1998), ed. "WordNet:
An Electronic Lexical Database" . MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.
Please
report bugs to wordnet@princeton.edu .
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