Is it possible to make Hunspell print the line numbers of the misspelled words?
hunspell, line-numbers, spell-checking
Solution
Now, I actually downloaded the sources of Hunspell and got down to business. There is an undocumented `-u` option that gives me an output I can comfortably work with:
$ hunspell -u -d en_US,de_DE myessay.txt
This does the trick for printing line numbers using the German and the American dictionaries. Alternatively, you can use the `-U` option to get an excerpt of the text, as well. Other undocumented command-line options are `-u2` and `-u3`.
But be careful: Those switches are experimental and the source code says, that those functions are lacking Unicode support.
From the Hungarian documentation:
- `-u`: Display typical errors in the file with a replacement proposal.
- `-u2`: Typical bugs and their fixes which can be executed with sed.
- `-U`: If you want to accept all the suggestions received with the `-u` option, the `-U` switch will automatically replace Hunspell and send the modified file to the standard output. Example patch: `hunspell -U original_file >patch_file`. The error output also shows patches again, similar to the `-u` switch.
Some output examples:
- `-u`: `Line 2: liveration -> liberation`
- `-u2`: `2s/liveration/liberation/g; # liveration`
- `-u3`: `(null):2: Locate: liveration | Try: liberation`
Problem
I am trying to use Hunspell to correct an essay I have written. Unfortunately, it is useless to me, as long as it doesn’t print the line numbers of the misspelled words. So right now I am using the `-a` option, in order to be able to pipe it into the `hunspell` command. The man page says, that the `-L` option would “Print lines with misspelled words.” But I don’t see any difference in the output. This is what I do right now: ``` $ cat myessay.txt | hunspell -d en_US,de_DE -a -L ``` An example output looks like this: ``` & JavaServer 3 412: Java Server, Java-Server, Javasee ``` The word “JavaServer” is on line 78, and as explained by the man page, it has an offset of 412 characters on that line. Is there something I am missing? Is there an easy solution to this problem, or do I really have to pipe each line into Hunspell to find out at which line number it was? Thanks in advance.