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.
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 wn.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.
- wn.h
- WordNet include file of constants, data structures, external declarations
for global variables initialized in wnglobal.c. Also lists function
prototypes for library API. It must be included to use any WordNet library
functions.
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 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 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. Default is /usr/local/WordNet-3.0.
- WNSEARCHDIR
- Directory in which the WordNet database has been installed. Default is
WNHOME/dict.
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.