Newsgroups: sci.lang.japan,soc.culture.japan,fj.life.in-japan,fj.sources.d,fj.sci.lang
Subject: [ENGLISH] dictionary program release announcement
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Reply-to: jfriedl@nff.ncl.omron.co.jp
FCC: ~/News/Posts
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[nihongo no anaunsu ha betsu desu                     ]
[Japanese-language announcement is in a seperate post.]

After much preparation, I am finally releasing my "lookup" program.
One-line summary is that it's a fast, interactive grep program that
can handle Japanese.

I use it primairily for looking up things in edict, kanjidic, and
/usr/dict/words.

But for a "grep", it's _very_ powerful. The manual is 33 pages
printed, if that's any indication.  I have found it absolutely
indispensable for study and reading help.

It should run on most UNIX boxes. I'd like to port it to DOS some
time, but the DOS world has Jim Breen's jdic already, so I'm in no
rush.

Jim Breen will kindly make it available on his archive:
  ftp.cc.monash.edu.au (130.194.1.106) in pub/nihongo/

Until then, for a short time, you should be able to find it on
  omrongw.wg.omron.co.jp (133.210.4.4)
in
  .tmp/jfriedl/lookup_v1.0_tar.Z

I have put a lot of hard work into this, so I hope it can be enjoyed
by many. I even tried writing a mini-manual in Japanese to make it
more accessable.

yoroshiku onegaishimasu.
	*jeffrey*
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jeffrey E.F. Friedl        Omron Corporation, Nagaokakyo (Kyoto), Japan
jfriedl@nff.ncl.omron.co.jp              [ DoD##4  N8XBK   92 CB-1 400 ]



Below is from the English README
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

LOOKUP provides a way to quickly and powerfully search text files.

The author's prime use is to search "edict" (a Japanese-English word list),
"kanjidic" (a database about Japanese characters), and "/usr/dict/words"
(list of English words).

However, one could easily be used to search for variables in huge programs,
or most any other application of searching line-based text.

From the manual page:

   Romaji-to-Kana Converter
        Lookup can convert romaji to kana for you, even "on the fly" as you
        type.

   Fuzzy Searching
        Searches can be a bit "vague" or "fuzzy" , so that you'll be
  	able to find the Japanese word for Tokyo even if you try to search for
        "to kyo" (the proper Japanese "spelling" being "to u kyo u")

   Regular Expressions
        Uses the powerful and expressive regular expression for searching. One
        can easily specify complex searches that affect "I want lines that
        look like such-and-such, but not like this-and-that, but that also
        have this particular characteristic...."

   Filters
        You can have lookup not list certain lines that would otherwise match
        your search, yet can optionally save them for quick review. For
        example, you could have all nameonly entries from edict filtered
        from normal output.

   Automatic Modifications
        Similarly, you can do a standard search-and-replace on lines just
        before they print, perhaps to remove information you don't care to
        see on most searches. For example, if you're generally not interested
        in kanjidic's info on Chinese readings, you can have them removed from
        lines before printing.

   Smart Word-Preference Mode
        You can have lookup list only entries with whole words that match your
        search (as opposed to an embedded match, such as finding "the" inside
        "them" ), but if no wholeword matches exist, will go ahead and list
        any entry that matches the search.

   Handy Features
        Other handy features include a dynamically settable and parameterized
        prompt, automatic highlighting of that part of the line that matches
        your search, an output pager, readline-like input with horizontal
        scrolling for long input lines, a ".lookup" startup file, automated
        programability, and much more.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Jeffrey
    jfriedl@nff.ncl.omron.co.jp
