Table of Contents

## NAME

wnintro - 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 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.

## LIST OF WORDNET LIBRARY FUNCTIONS

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 .

### Database Searching Functions (search.o)

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.

### 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 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.

### 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 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 .

### 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 initialized 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 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

## ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES (UNIX)

WNHOME
  Base directory for WordNet. Default is /usr/local/WordNet-2.1 .
WNSEARCHDIR
  Directory in which the WordNet database has been installed. Default is WNHOME/dict .

## REGISTRY (WINDOWS)

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WordNet\2.1\WNHome
  Base directory for WordNet. Default is C:\Program Files\WordNet\2.1 .

## FILES

lib/libwn.a
  WordNet library (Unix)
lib\wn.lib
  WordNet library (Windows)
include
  header files for use with WordNet library

## SEE ALSO

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.

## BUGS

Please report bugs to wordnet@princeton.edu .

Table of Contents

- NAME
- DESCRIPTION
- LIST OF WORDNET LIBRARY FUNCTIONS

- Database Searching Functions (search.o)
- Morphology Functions (morph.o)
- Utility Functions (wnutil.o)
- Binary Search Functions (binsrch.o)

- HEADER FILE
- NOTES
- ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES (UNIX)
- REGISTRY (WINDOWS)
- FILES
- SEE ALSO
- BUGS