WNINTRO(3WN) WordNet™ Library Functions WNINTRO(3WN)NAMEwnintro - introduction to WordNet library functions
DESCRIPTION
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 pro‐
vide 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 proto‐
types, you must edit the source code and remove the prototypes before
compiling.
LIST OF WORDNET LIBRARY FUNCTIONS
Not all library functions are listed below. Missing are mainly func‐
tions 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 wn.h.
Database Searching Functions (search.o)
findtheinfo Primary search function for WordNet database.
Returns formatted search results in text buf‐
fer. 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 struc‐
ture. 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 find‐
theinfo_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.
Morphology Functions (morph.o)
morphinit Open exception list files.
re_morphinit Close exception list files and reopen.
morphstr Try to find base form (lemma) of word or col‐
location 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.
Utility Functions (wnutil.o)
wninit Top level function to open database files and
morphology exception lists.
re_wninit Top level function to close and reopen data‐
base files and morphology exception lists.
cntwords Count the number of underscore or space sepa‐
rated words in a string.
strtolower Convert string to lower case and remove trail‐
ing 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 dis‐
play_message. Simply returns -1.
Binary Search Functions (binsrch.o)
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.
HEADER FILE
wn.h WordNet include file of constants, data structures,
external declarations for global variables initial‐
ized in wnglobal.c. Also lists function prototypes
for library API. It must be included to use any
WordNet library functions.
NOTES
All library functions that access the database files expect the files
to be open. The function wninit(3WN) must be called before other data‐
base access functions such as findtheinfo(3WN) or read_synset(3WN).
Inclusion of the header file wn.h is necessary.
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 cat‐
egory 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 │
└────────┴─────────────┴────────────────────┴──────┴─────────┘
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES (UNIX)
WNHOME Base directory for WordNet. Default is
/usr/local/WordNet-3.0.
WNSEARCHDIR Directory in which the WordNet database has been
installed. Default is WNHOME/dict.
REGISTRY (WINDOWS)
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WordNet\3.0\WNHome
Base directory for WordNet. Default is C:\Pro‐
gram Files\WordNet\3.0.
FILES
lib/libwn.a WordNet library (Unix)
lib\wn.lib WordNet library (Windows)
include header files for use with WordNet library
SEE ALSOwnintro(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.
BUGS
Please report bugs to wordnet@princeton.edu.
WordNet 3.0 Dec 2006 WNINTRO(3WN)
