English-to-Latin Reduced Functioning

[jag715]

Thanks for your work maintaining this excellent resource. I want to mention I'm noticing issues with the English to Latin function.

In the current build, the English to Latin function returns 'No Match' most of the time but not always. World, trunk, pig, leaf, any number of words can provide this example. Past versions were more robust in this function.

Likely related to this: It seems only to return Latin words that begin with the letter A.

Not sure if these screen shots will work.

A slightly older build, running on windows:

Current build, running on NixOS:

Returning only words that begin with the letter A:

[erica-corral]

I've done some digging into this issue. I don't really know the project well enough to pinpoint the error, since Ada is not a language I've learned, but while poking around the source files, it seems possible the reduced functioning could be due to a sorting error.

In HOWTO.txt, there is a bit about how the EWDSLIST, which handles the English look ups has to be sorted using the sorting utility beforehand according to a table listed in the beginning of the image. The image also mentions that if the words system runs, but creates an incorrect output, which it seems to be doing here, it is probably due to a sort error. My guess is that in the process of editing the dictionary for this living version of words, the word orders probably shifted a bit, so the sorting on the EWDSLIST is off, and the program thus only finds words starting with A because of this incorrect sorting. I'm not sure if it's a boundary issue, or how the EWDSLIST is sorted, since I'm not entirely familiar with how the dictionary files were originally sorted.

My guess is that if you take your EWDSLIST file from the older build and overwrite the EWDSLIST file on the newer build, the newer build might work properly, but since I don't have a copy of the older build I cannot test it. Maybe you could try this, or upload your copy of EWDSLIST so I could try it?

Hopefully someone more knowledgeable could comment about whether this sorting issue is the root of the problem, but I will keep looking!

Cheers!

[erica-corral]

Update: I just recompiled the latest code from this repository, and it seems like the issue has been addressed. Entry for "man:"

It appears code changes have been made in commit 'ff2e' to the English word generation that might have fixed the issue.

Thank you to everyone who keeps this excellent resource alive! Your work has helped many Latin students, including myself and those I know well.

[jag715]

Thanks for looking into that and glad to hear it is resolved. I’ve been using this repository to power https://ll.latinlens.repl.co, which is a reading tool especially for beginners. The English to Latin feature is very helpful.