Text::Aspell - Perl interface to the Aspell library

DESCRIPTION

Text::Aspell is an interface to the GNU Aspell library.  GNU Aspell is a Free
and Open Source spell checker.  The Text::Aspell module is a thin XS wrapper
around the Aspell C Library.

REQUIREMENTS

Hopefully this is obvious, but you MUST have the Aspell library installed on
your system before installing this module.  You also MUST have the en_US
dictionary installed for "make test" to pass.

For example, if you are running Debian you would have done this first:

    # apt-get install aspell-en libaspell-dev

which would install the aspell binary and dictionary, plus also
the aspell library and header file which are needed to link this module against.

If you installed GNU Aspell from source then you should have the the aspell.h and
aspell library on your system.

Take a look at the bug reports for Aspell:

    http://cpantesters.perl.org/show/Text-Aspell.html#Text-Aspell-0.05

Note how many either say:

    Aspell.xs:7: aspell.h: No such file or directory

or:

    #     Failed test (t/05-core.t at line 33)
    #          got: 'en_GB'
    #     expected: 'en_US'
    # Really need the en_US dictionary installed!

Makefile.PL does not do any checking of of Aspell before building.  I would welcome
any help updating the build process to do more checking up front.



See BUILD NOTES and CURRENT ISSUES below before reporting any bugs.


This module has been built and passed all tests on the following platforms:

    perl 5.6.1 on Linux, gcc version 2.95.3 20010315 (release)
    perl 5.8.0 on Linux gcc version 2.95.4 20011002 (Debian prerelease)
    perl 5.00503 on FreeBSD 4.6-STABLE gcc version 2.95.4 20020320 [FreeBSD]

    (these require at least aspell-0.50.1)
    perl 5.00503 on Solaris 5.8 sparc SUNW,Ultra-60 gcc version 2.95.2 19991024 (release)
    perl 5.00503 on Solaris 2.6, gcc version 2.95.1 19990816 (release)

And on Wed Jul 27 10:36:12 PDT 2005:

    perl 5.8.7, Aspell 0.60.3, gcc 3.3.6 Debian Sid
    perl 5.8.7  Aspell 0.60.3, gcc 3.4.2 FreeBSD 5.4-STABLE i386


And on Fri May 26 18:59:51 UTC 2006 with Text-Aspell-0.06

    perl  5.8.8, Aspell 0.60.4, aspell6-en-6.0.0  Debian Sid gcc 4.0.3 (all from source)
    perl  5.8.4, Aspell 0.60.4, aspell6-en-6.0-0, Debian GNU/Linux 3.1 gcc  3.3.5 (all from source)
    perl  5.8.8, Aspell 0.60.4, FreeBSD 6.1-RELEASE #0, gcc 3.4.4 (Aspell from ports)





Please read SUPPORT below if you have trouble building Text::Aspell.


INSTALLATION

Windows users see below.

1) Install Aspell and a Dictionary

    Make sure you have a current version of GNU Aspell installed.
    You must install both the Aspell program and a dictionary.
    They are distributed as separate packages.

    (Look at all the FAILED reports on CPAN from people that don't have Aspell
    installed!)

    Aspell and the dictionary files can be downloaded from:

    http://aspell.net/

    Note: The Text::Aspell module's test suite ("make test") requires
    that the English dictionary is installed.

    This module has been tested with the following version of Aspell
    and dictionary:

        aspell-0.50       Aspell program (ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/aspell/aspell-0.50.tar.gz)
        aspell-en-0.50-1  English Dictionary (ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/aspell/aspell-en-0.50-1.tar.bz2)

    NOTE: URLs for reference only -- use the most current version of each available.

    Aspell and the dictionary packages contain README files that include
    installation instructions.  Here's a basic overview:

    Aspell must be installed first, then install the dictionary file and finally
    install the Text::Aspell module.

    Aspell installation example:

    $ wget ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/aspell/aspell-0.50.tar.gz
    $ tar zxof aspell-0.50.tar.gz           # or gzip -dc aspell-0.50.tar.gz | tar xof -
    $ cd aspell-0.50
    $ ./configure ( ./configure --help for options )
    $ make
    # make install

    If you used a --prefix option to install Aspell in a non-standard location you
    will need to adjust your path to include $PREFIX/bin.  The configure script
    for the dictionary needs to find programs installed in the previous step.

    Dictionary installation example:

    $ wget ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/aspell/aspell-en-0.50-1.tar.bz2
    $ tar jxof aspell-en-0.50-1.tar.bz2     # or bunzip2 < aspell-en-0.50-1.tar.bz2 | tar xof -
    $ cd aspell-en-0.50-1
    $ ./configure
    $ make
    # make install

    At this point you should be able to run Aspell in interactive mode.
    For example:

    $ aspell -a
    @(#) International Ispell Version 3.1.20 (but really Aspell 0.50)
    speler
    & speler 30 0: speller, speer, spiller, spoiler, ...


2) Build and install this Text::Aspell module.

    $ perl Makefile.PL
    $ make
    $ make test
    # make install


    If you installed Apsell in a non-standard location (for example, if
    you don't have root access) then you will need to tell Makefile.PL where to
    find the library.

    For example, if Apsell was installed in $HOME/local (--prefix=$HOME/local)
    and the perl module should be installed in the perl library $HOME/perl_lib:

    $ perl Makefile.PL PREFIX=$HOME/perl_lib \
    CCFLAGS=-I$HOME/local/include \
    LIBS="-L$HOME/local/lib -laspell"

    $ LD_RUN_PATH=$HOME/local/lib make
    $ make test
    $ make install



WINDOWS USERS

Randy Kobes has provided a PPM and the following instructions for installing
Text::Aspell on Windows.  Thanks very much Randy.

For installing on Win32, first get and install the "Full installer"
executable at

   http://aspell.net/win32/

this will install Aspell into a location such as C:\Program Files\Aspell. You
will also need to fetch and install at least one of the precompiled
dictionaries found on the same page.

Make sure that the path to the Aspell bin directory (e.g. C:\Program
Files\Aspell\bin\) is in your PATH environment variable.  For help with
setting your path see "set environment variables" in the Windows Help
Utility.  You may need to reboot or open a new shell window after setting
your path.  The Aspell .dll file must be located in the PATH before using
Text::Aspell.

Then, to install Text::Aspell, type at a DOS prompt (all on one line)

   C:\> ppm install http://theoryx5.uwinnipeg.ca/ppms/Text-Aspell.ppd

for an ActivePerl 8xx version, or

   C:\> ppm install http://theoryx5.uwinnipeg.ca/ppmpackages/Text-Aspell.ppd

for an ActivePerl 6xx version.

If you wish to build Text::Aspell from source:

If you want to build Text::Aspell yourself, you'll need a C compiler, which
must be the same one that your Perl is built with (for ActivePerl, this means
VC++ 6). Assuming you have that, in addition to the "Full installer" binary
package at http://aspell.net/win32/, you'll also need to get and install the
aspell-dev package (also located at http://aspell.net/win32/), which contains
the necessary .lib and .h files needed to compile the Perl module.

Like above, make sure the PATH environment variable points to the location of
the installed Aspell .dll file before building Text::Aspell.

Installation then proceeds as described for the Unix version:

   perl Makefile.PL
   nmake
   nmake test
   nmake install

with the additional requirement of passing to 'perl Makefile.PL' the
necessary arguments (e.g. INC and LIBS) to specify the locations of the lib
and header files, if these were installed in a non-standard location. Make
sure that if a non-standard location was used that this is added to your PATH
environment variable before running the tests.


SUPPORT

Before contacting me with problems building Text::Aspell please try and debug
as much as possible.

For example, if "make test" fails, then run in verbose mode:

   make test TEST_VERBOSE=1

That may show at what test is failing.  It's easy to run the test
script manually -- and you can even edit and add a few print statements to
aid in debugging.

For example:

   perl -Iblib/lib -Iblib/arch t/test.t | less

Use of LD_RUN_PATH, CCFLAGS and LIBS as above may also help if the build
process fails.

Remember that you *must* have the English dictionary installed for tests to
pass (sorry, have to check against some dictionary).  Also, you may need to
set your LANG variable to "en_US" so that the English dictionary is selected.

If all else fails, use the request tracker at:

  http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/Bugs.html?Dist=Text-Aspell


BUILD NOTES / CURRENT ISSUES

A number of people have reported the

    $speller->store_replacement()

test failing on some platforms.  I don't know why.  Search google to find out
why I don't know why.  The code (from what I can tell) looks like it should be
returning an error value, but fails on some platforms.  Until I can get a
better answer I'm going to assume Aspell is broken and ignore the return value
in t/test.t.  So don't test the return value in your code, either.

Update May 2006:  Changed from checking return values to calling aspell_*_error
method to test for errors.


Some users of OS X have reported the test failing after calling clear_session().
The test is suppose to see if a word added to the session is removed after calling
clear_session().  It's another error I have not been able to reproduce on the machines
I tested on.


"Pax" provided these notes:

    I just got Text::Aspell to build and work under OpenBSD 3.7 and thought you
    might like a tiny suggestion: in the README, you might note that under this
    operating system you need to add -lstdc++ to the list of libraries you link
    against, e.g.:

            $ perl Makefile.PL \
                   PREFIX=/usr/local INSTALLDIRS=site \
                   CCFLAGS=-I/usr/local/include \
                   LIBS="-L/usr/local/lib -laspell -lstdc++"

    If you don't do this, then any attempt to use Text::Aspell will throw
    thousands of unresolved symbol errors trying to load your shared object.
    This is against libaspell in /usr/local/lib installed from the aspell
    port in the OpenBSD 3.7 ports tree, FWIW.


A number of Solaris uses have reported the need to set:

    LDFLAGS='-L/usr/local/lib -R/usr/local/lib'

and also having to copy libstdc++* to /usr/lib.  YMMV.