ConfigKeys() => dictionary

Method returns a dictionary, where keys are names of configuration item, values are 3-tuples:

• key type (string, integer, boolean, list)
• default value for the key
• short description - "internal" means that aspell doesn't provide any description of item and you shouldn't set/change it, unless you know what you do

Aspell's documentation covers in details all of keys and their meaning. Below is a list of most useful and obvious options (it is a filtered output of ConfigKeys).

('data-dir', 'string', '/usr/lib/aspell-0.60', 'location of language data files')
('dict-dir', 'string', '/usr/lib/aspell-0.60', 'location of the main word list')
('encoding', 'string', 'ISO-8859-2', 'encoding to expect data to be in')
('home-dir', 'string', '/home/wojtek', 'location for personal files')
('ignore', 'integer', 1, 'ignore words <= n chars')
('ignore-accents', 'boolean', False, 'ignore accents when checking words -- CURRENTLY IGNORED')
('ignore-case', 'boolean', False, 'ignore case when checking words')
('ignore-repl', 'boolean', False, 'ignore commands to store replacement pairs')
('keyboard', 'string', 'standard', 'keyboard definition to use for typo analysis')
('lang', 'string', 'pl_PL', 'language code')
('master', 'string', 'pl_PL', 'base name of the main dictionary to use')
('personal-path', 'string', '/home/wojtek/.aspell.pl_PL.pws', 'internal')
('repl-path', 'string', '/home/wojtek/.aspell.pl_PL.prepl', 'internal')
('run-together', 'boolean', False, 'consider run-together words legal')
('save-repl', 'boolean', True, 'save replacement pairs on save all')
('warn', 'boolean', True, 'enable warnings')
('backup', 'boolean', True, 'create a backup file by appending ".bak"')
('reverse', 'boolean', False, 'reverse the order of the suggest list')
('suggest', 'boolean', True, 'suggest possible replacements')

Speller()

Method creates an AspellSpeller object which is an interface to the GNU Aspell.

Speller called with no parameters creates speller using default configuration. If you want to change or set some parameter you can pass pair of strings: key and it's value. One can get available keys using ConfigKeys.

>>> aspell.Speller("key", "value")

If you want to set more than one pair of key&value, pass the list of pairs to the Speller().

>>> aspell.Speller( ("k1","v1"), ("k2","v2"), ("k3","v3") )

AspellConfigError

Error is reported by methods Speller and ConfigKeys. The most common error is passing unknown key.

>>> s = aspell.Speller('python', '2.3')
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in ?
aspell.AspellConfigError: The key "python" is unknown.
>>>

AspellModuleError

Error is reported when module can't allocate aspell structures.

AspellSpellerError

Error is reported by libaspell.

>>> # we set master dictionary file, the file doesn't exist
>>> s = Speller('master', '/home/dictionary.rws')
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in ?
aspell.AspellSpellerError: The file "/home/dictionary.rws" can not be opened for reading.
>>>

ConfigKeys() => dictionary

New in version 1.1, changed in 1.13.

Method returns current configuration of speller.

Result has the same meaning as ConfigKeys() procedure.

check(word) => boolean

Method checks spelling of given word. If word is present in the main or personal (see addtoPersonal) or session dictionary (see addtoSession) returns True, otherwise False.

>>> s.check('word') # correct word
True
>>> s.check('wrod') # incorrect
False
>>>

New in version 1.13.

It's possible to use operator in or not in instead of check().

>>> 'word' in s
True
>>> 'wrod' in s
False
>>>

suggest (word) => list of suggestions

Method returns a list of suggested spellings for given word. Even if word is correct, i.e. method check returned 1, action is performed.

>>> s.suggest('wrod') # we made mistake, what aspell suggests?
['word', 'Rod', 'rod', 'Brod', 'prod', 'trod', 'Wood', 'wood', 'wried']
>>>

Warning! suggest() in aspell 0.50 is very, very slow. I recommend caching it's results if program calls the function several times with the same argument.

addReplecement(incorrect, correct) => None

Adds a replacement pair, it affects order of words in suggest result.

>>> # we choose 7th word from previous result
>>> s.addReplecement('wrod', 'trod')

>>> # and the selected word appears at the 1st position
>>> s.suggest('word')
['trod', 'word', 'Rod', 'rod', 'Brod', 'prod', 'Wood', 'wood', 'wried']

If config key save-repl is true method saveAllwords saves the replacement pairs to file ~/.aspell.{lang_code}.prepl.

addtoPersonal(word) => None

Adds word to the personal dictionary, which is stored in file ~./.aspell.{lang_code}.pws. The added words are available for AspellSpeller object, but they remain unsaved until method saveAllwords is called.

# personal dictionary is empty now
$ cat ~/.aspell.en.pws
personal_ws-1.1 en 0

$ python
>>> import aspell
>>> s = aspell.Speller('lang', 'en')
# word 'aspell' doesn't exist
>>> s.check('aspell')
0

# we add it to the personal dictionary
>>> s.addtoPersonal('aspell')

# and now aspell knows it
>>> s.check('aspell')
1

# we save personal dictionary
>>> s.saveAllwords()

# new word appeared in the file
$ cat ~/.aspell.en.pws
personal_ws-1.1 en 1
aspell

# check it once again
$ python
>>> import aspell
>>> s = aspell.Speller('lang', 'en')

# aspell still knows it's own name
>>> s.check('aspell')
1

>>> s.check('aaa')
0
>>> s.check('bbb')
0
# add incorrect words, they shouldn't be saved
>>> s.addtoPersonal('aaa')
>>> s.addtoPersonal('bbb')
>>> s.check('aaa')
1
>>> s.check('bbb')
1

# we've exit without saving, words 'aaa' and 'bbb' doesn't exists
$ cat ~/.aspell.en.pws
personal_ws-1.1 en 1
aspell
$

addtoSession(word) => None

Adds word to the session dictionary. The session dictionary is volatile, it is not saved to any file. It is destroyed with AspellSpeller object or when method clearSession is called.

saveAllwords() => None

Save all words from personal dictionary.

clearSession() => None

Clears session dictionary.

>>> import aspell
>>> s = aspell.Speller('lang', 'en')
>>> s.check('linux')
0
>>> s.addtoSession('linux')
>>> s.check('linux')
1
>>> s.clearSession()
>>> s.check('linux')
0

getPersonalwordlist() => [list of strings]

Returns list of words from personal dictionary.

getSessionwordlist() => [list of strings]

Returns list of words from session dictionary.

>>> s.addtoSession('aaa')
>>> s.addtoSession('bbb')
>>> s.getSessionwordlist()
['aaa', 'bbb']
>>> s.clearSession()
>>> s.getSessionwordlist()
[]
>>>

getMainwordlist() => [list of strings]

Returns list of words from the main dictionary.