[Techtalk] dict format WAS: thesaurus

[Avery Ke]

How do you create databases for dict? I have several
english-esperanto dictionaries I found online, but I cannot use
them with dict, so I have to resort to a script (at end of email), 
but the script often pulls up a dozen or more possible words.

I got the text file esp-angla-vortoj.txt.Z from
ftp://ftp.stack.nl/pub/esperanto/word-lists.dir/index.html	0	

The text file is in this form:
agrabl	r	a	agreeable
ajx	s	o	thing

where the first column is the smallest unit, 
the second column describes type of unit (r=root, s=suffix, etc)
the third column gives part of speech (o=noun, a=adjective, etc)
and the fourth column is the english translation

Currently I just use this script:


#!/bin/sh
usage() {
  cat<<EOF
usage: $programName vorto ...
EOF
}

programName=`basename $0`

if [ $# -eq 0 ]; then
  usage
  exit 1
fi

while [ $# -ne 0 ]
do
#  grep $1 $HOME/local/usr/dict/EO/dictionary.txt
  egrep -i "$1" $HOME/local/usr/dict/EO/esp-angla-vortoj.txt
  shift
done
# -----------------------------end of vorto script

As I said above,  I often pull up a dozen or so words that match my
text. It would be *much* easier to use this in dict, but I don't
see a simple way to convert it.


If anyone could give me tips on converting to dict form, I'd be thankful.

Thanks,

Avery