DICT gateway for the Worldwide Lexicon
version 1.0 (alpha-1)
April 22, 2004


This is a WWL service that provides access to DICT protocol servers.  At
present, only the DICT server at dict.org is queried; its databases are:

  elements   Elements database 20001107
  web1913    Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)
  wn         WordNet (r) 2.0
  gazetteer  U.S. Gazetteer (1990)
  jargon     Jargon File (4.3.0, 30 APR 2001)
  foldoc     The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (27 SEP 03)
  easton     Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary
  hitchcock  Hitchcock's Bible Names Dictionary (late 1800's)
  devils     THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY ((C)1911 Released April 15 1993)
  world02    CIA World Factbook 2002
  vera       Virtual Entity of Relevant Acronyms (Version 1.9, June 2002)

Concomitantly, only the 'searchtext' action is currently available.  It need
not be specified.

Only one database may be queried at a time.  The WWL base URL for a specific
database is:

  http://wwl.ecstatic.com/dict/<database name>/


REQUEST FORMAT

The 'sl' and 'stext' parameters are required.  A basic query like:

  http://wwl.ecstatic.com/dict/jargon/?sl=eng&stext=hack

will invoke the DICT DEFINE command.  Specifying 'searchtype' will cause the
MATCH command to be invoked; this parameter must name a matching strategy that
the server implements.  Currently, these are:

  exact      Match words exactly
  prefix     Match prefixes
  substring  Match substring occurring anywhere in word
  suffix     Match suffixes
  re         POSIX 1003.2 (modern) regular expressions
  regexp     Old (basic) regular expressions
  soundex    Match using SOUNDEX algorithm
  lev        Match words within Levenshtein distance one

Use of the wildcard character, '*', in the source text will also cause the
MATCH command to be invoked with the strategy suggested by its placement,
as follows:

  stext=word*     is equivalent to    stext=word&searchtype=prefix
  stext=*word*    is equivalent to    stext=word&searchtype=substring
  stext=*word     is equivalent to    stext=word&searchtype=suffix
  stext=wor*d     is equivalent to    stext=wor.*d&searchtype=regexp

Inconsistent constructs like

  stext=word*&searchtype=suffix

will produce an error.

If 'searchtype' is 're' or 'regexp', a '*' is interpreted according to the
relevant rules for constructing regular expressions, not as a simple wildcard.

The 'exact' parameter is largely useless; if 'searchtype' is not specified
(either explicitly or through the use of wildcards), "exact=1" forces a MATCH
with the 'exact' strategy, while 'exact=0' forces a substring match.  If
'searchtype' is specified, "exact=1" is invalid, and "exact=0" is a no-op.


RESPONSE FORMAT

The result of a DEFINE command is one or more unstructured definitions.  No
attempt is made to parse these or produce markup; a record is simply output
for each, with the text enclosed in the <vdef> element.

The URL associated with each entry returned by a DEFINE command corresponds to
the 'searchtext' request that was issued and is not unique to the record in
question.  No record ID as such is available.

The result of a MATCH command is one or more dictionary entries.  In this case,
the URL associated with each entry corresponds to the 'searchtext' request to
retrieve that entry.


EXAMPLE REQUESTS

http://wwl.ecstatic.com/dict/jargon/?sl=eng&stext=hack
http://wwl.ecstatic.com/dict/elements/?sl=eng&stext=*mium
http://wwl.ecstatic.com/dict/foldoc/?sl=eng&stext=automat\[ao\]&searchtype=re
http://wwl.ecstatic.com/dict/easton/?sl=eng&stext=elijah&searchtype=soundex
http://wwl.ecstatic.com/dict/web1913/?sl=eng&stext=coffee&searchtype=lev