Using dictionary from command line

Linc Davis wrote:
you could install the POSIX 'dict' command (e.g. from MacPorts) which is a client for online dictionaries.

The suggestion given above launches Dictionary.app, which is apparently not what you want.

 // insert code here...
 NSLog(@"Hello, World!");

 if(argc < 2)
 {
 printf("Usage: dict <word to define> ");
 
 return -1;
 }
 
 NSString * search = 
 [NSString stringWithCString: argv[1] encoding: NSUTF8StringEncoding];
 
 CFStringRef def = 
 DCSCopyTextDefinition(NULL, 
 (CFStringRef)search, 
 CFRangeMake(0, [search length]));
 
 NSString * output = 
 [NSString
 stringWithFormat: 
 @"Definition of <%@>: %@", search, (NSString *)def];
 
 printf("%s", [output UTF8String]);

Copy and paste the following Python script as plain text into a new TextEdit document. Save it as dict.py to your Scripts folder located at /Users/<username>/Library/Scripts/. Adjust the textwrap column width (width=76), and the initial_indent and subsequent_indent spacings to your preference:

#!/usr/bin/env python2.7 import sys import DictionaryServices import textwrap def main(): try: search_term = sys.argv[1] except IndexError: print 'No search term was entered.' sys.exit() search_result = DictionaryServices.DCSCopyTextDefinition( None, search_term, (0, len(search_term))) if not search_result: print '"%s" was not found in Dictionary.' % (search_term) else: term_definition = search_result.replace( u'\u25B6', '').replace('ORIGIN', ' ORIGIN') single_spacing = ' '.join(term_definition.split()) wrapper = textwrap.TextWrapper(width=76, initial_indent=' ', subsequent_indent=' ') print wrapper.fill(single_spacing) if __name__ == '__main__': main()

Make the script executable with the following command in Terminal, substituting your username for <username>:

chmod u+x /Users/<username>/Library/Scripts/dict.py

If using the default bash shell in Terminal, place the following line in your ~/.bash_profile, substituting your username for <username>. If using a different shell, such a zsh, place it in that shell's profile. For zsh that would be ~/.zprofile:

alias dict='/Users/<username>/Library/Scripts/dict.py'

Then simply use the "dict" command with the search term you wish defined.

If you prefer, use the following Python script to display the definition in a border. Adjust the textwrap column width (width=76) to your preference and the border will resize automatically:

#!/usr/bin/env python2.7 import sys import DictionaryServices import textwrap def main(): try: search_term = sys.argv[1] except IndexError: print 'No search term was entered.' sys.exit() search_result = DictionaryServices.DCSCopyTextDefinition( None, search_term, (0, len(search_term))) if not search_result: print '"%s" was not found in Dictionary.' % (search_term) else: term_definition = search_result.replace( u'\u25B6', '').replace('ORIGIN', ' ORIGIN') single_spacing = ' '.join(term_definition.split()) border_text = textwrap.fill(single_spacing, width=76).splitlines() max_length = max(len(s) for s in border_text) column_width = max_length + 2 print '+' + '-' * column_width + '+' for s in border_text: print '| %-*.*s |' % (max_length, max_length, s) print '+' + '-' * column_width + '+' if __name__ == '__main__': main()

The elapsed time to return a definition is acceptable, generally less than a third of a second (on my 2008 MacBook Pro).

I have posted Python and Ruby code to the communities in the past, that was syntax, format, and runtime correct on my end. In the support communities, I have used plain text (posting directly into the article), placed the code within an inserted quote, or various syntax highlighting choices from the advanced editor, and the code did not remain true to the same format as it was on my Mac.

The following Python code contains no tabs, and all indented code is in 4-space multiples. This was done as an exercise to see if you can copy/paste it back to you, and run it without indentation errors. The code when provided a full, or shorthand path to a Word .docx document, will list the fonts that are referenced inside of it. It uses a positive Lookbehind in the regular expression. It is tested on El Capitan 10.11.1, and the default Python 2.7.10 from Apple. I never post code that uses a third-party Python module.

#!/usr/bin/env python

import zipfile

import re

import os

import sys

def main():

fonts = []

try:

thefile = os.path.expanduser(sys.argv[1])

except (ValueError, IndexError):

sys.exit('Usage: {} filename.docx\n'.format(sys.argv[0]))

if not thefile.endswith('.docx'):

sys.exit('Not a valid Word document')

# Word docx compressed-zip, single file format

if zipfile.is_zipfile(thefile):

with zipfile.ZipFile(thefile, 'r') as pzip:

xmldata = pzip.read('word/fontTable.xml')

fonts = re.findall(r'(?<=w:name=)("[ \w+]+")>', xmldata)

for name in fonts:

print("{}".format(name))

if __name__ == '__main__':

sys.exit(main())

Tangentially, if you like to discover new words, you can look up words randomly in Dictionary on the command-line using dict.py, described in a previous post above, and command substitution. You'll first need to extract a word list from whichever dictionary you use. You can then use a language and function of your choice. I prefer shuf, non-native to OS X, but which you can download as part of GNU Coreutils. You can also use Ruby, Perl, or Python which are all included in OS X.

Shuf:

dict "$(shuf -n1 ~/WordLists/NOAD3rdED.txt)"

Ruby:

dict "$(ruby -e 'puts $<.readlines.shuffle' < ~/WordLists/NOAD3rdED.txt | sed -n 1,1p)"

Perl:

dict "$(perl -MList::Util=shuffle -e 'print shuffle <>' ~/WordLists/NOAD3rdED.txt | head -1)"

Python:

dict "$(python -c 'import random, sys; print random.choice(open(sys.argv[1]).readlines()),' ~/WordLists/NOAD3rdED.txt)"

If you create a shell script and name it something like dictrand.sh, and place an alias in your ~/.bash_profile as described in a previous post above for dict, you can just use the command name. A script example:

#!/bin/bash

/Users/pd/Library/Scripts/dict.py "$(shuf -n1 ~/WordLists/NOAD3rdED.txt)"

Line example in ~/.bash_profile:

alias dictrand='/Users/pd/Library/Scripts/dictrand.sh'

Tony T1 wrote:

So, if you don't have an internet connection, you wouldn't be reading this 🙂

If you only own a desktop workstation I can appreciate that you'd miss the point. However, by far the majority of units that Apple sell are portables. Unlike air, the internet is not everywhere, and that's an important consideration for notebook users (I'll forget that you totally overlooked the response time issue...).

Anyway, a better note is not to use any scripts that you don't understand

Why are scripts a special case from any other software? If people were required to understand how every utility they use on their computer actualy works, then they'd be able to use very little, and software developers wouldn't have much of a market.

There's no reason why every user has to understand how every script on their computer works. What matters is at best that the user understands what is needed to make it work and what its major limitations are. In this case, as I pointed out, that's the internet and response time, respectively.

Great. All you need to do now is tell the OP how to do that in the command line (you might want to review the thread title there)...

Here, I got you started:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1617152/using-google-as-a-dictionary-lookup-v ia-bash-how-can-one-grab-the-first-definit

Still no word on comparative response times...maybe you have Google fiber and no data cap. 😁

One could put the following code in their ~/.bashrc file as a shell function.

dict () {

curl dict://dict.org/d:"${1}"

}

Then:

source .bashrc

dict Apple | more

Alternative using SpotLight

Use command+Space will open Spotlight. Put in the word you want to look up in the Apple Dictionary App. The results appear far down on the Spotlight results. Press command+L to jump to the dictionary entry and open the result in a Window, or command+D to open the Apple Dictionary App referencing the Spotlight word.

To be honest, I've no idea what you're getting so irate about and I care even less at this point. But to get back to the topic, at least tangentially, capisce isn't in the Apple installed dictionary. How about your dict.org Curl script?

(An interesting experiment would be to compare how fast both methods take to return a 'not found' result).

Is it possible I could see the definition of a word for eg. 'Apple' in terminal itself without opening the dictionary app?

My two cents… On my old MacBook Pro mid-2010, running El Capitan, I can use three fingers to tap a word to look it up in the dictionary, which does not open the dictionary.

Looks like the indenting in the above Python scripts didn't survive entirely intact when posting and will throw a "IndentationError: unindent does not match any outer indentation level" message. Indent scripts as shown below:

Sublime Text is an excellent tool, especially for indentation dependent code. Thanks for the tip regarding tabs to spaces, a nice time saver. Here's dict.py and dictbox.py in Sublime Text:

I suppose an option, given the code sharing vagaries of the hosting service, is to use a file sharing service to provide a download link. With that in mind, here are Dropbox links for previewing the code and downloading:

dict.py

dictbox.py

Tested with:

OS X El Capitan 10.11, Python 2.7.10

OS X Yosemite 10.10.5, Python 2.7.10

OS X Mavericks 10.9.5, Python 2.7.5

Hi KcidKcus. You're welcome; I glad you found the script(s) useful. I posted revised versions of dict.py and dictbox.py with the same links which you may want to download. They fix some indenting and support for accented letters. No need to revise your ~/.bash_profile, just replace dict.py or dictbox.py in your Scripts folder. Btw, for search terms other than single or hyphenated, use double quotes ("") or escape using the backslash (\). If you copy and paste, a phrase for example, you can paste with the Control-Command-V keys to paste escaped text. Some examples:

Hello VikingOSX,

Thank you for testing it. It is indeed very good news that manual loading of bridgesupport metadata still works with recent pyobjc, for it opens straightforward door to undocumented framework functions without resorting to ctypes module.

Regarding DictionaryServices.framework, more comlpicated and finer queries are possible by using undocumented functions as shown in the following threads. Now those rubycocoa codes may be translated into pyobjc codes without much difficulty.

How can I use Automator to extract substring of text based on pattern?

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6525478

Results from OpenThesaurus as a Service: How?

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6616776

---

By the way, here's a revision of my script which incorporated textwrap feature inspired by Roote. 🙂

#!/usr/bin/python # coding: utf-8 # # file: # dict.py # # usage: # ./dict.py hippopotamus rhinoceros 人 佛 # # version: # 0.20 # - added textwrap feature # 0.15 # - manually loading fixed bridgesupport metadata # # written by Hiroto, 2015-11 # import sys, objc import textwrap from CoreFoundation import * DCS_BRIDGESUPPORT = '''<?xml version="1.0" standalone="yes"?> <!DOCTYPE signatures SYSTEM "file://localhost/System/Library/DTDs/BridgeSupport.dtd"> <signatures version="0.9"> <function name="DCSCopyTextDefinition"> <arg type="^{__DCSDictionary=}"></arg> <arg type="^{__CFString=}"></arg> <arg type64="{_CFRange=qq}" type="{_CFRange=ii}"></arg> <retval type="^{__CFString=}"></retval> </function> </signatures>''' objc.parseBridgeSupport( DCS_BRIDGESUPPORT, globals(), objc.pathForFramework('/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Frameworks/DictionaryServices.framework') ) for q in [ e.decode('utf-8') for e in sys.argv[1:] ]: r = DCSCopyTextDefinition(None, q, (0, len(q))) or 'nil' r = ' '.join(r.split()) r = textwrap.fill(r, width=48) print '[%s]\n%s\n' % tuple( [e.encode('utf-8') for e in [q, r]] )

All the best,

Hiroto

Thanks for the great ObjC code.

• `CFRelease(def);` should be added at the end to release the string returned by `DCSCopyTextDefinition()`.
• As of Xcode 5.1 on OS X 10.9.2 with ARC you also need `__bridge` cast qualifiers: `

(__bridgeCFStringRef)` and `(__bridgeNSString*)`.

Also, adding the CoreServices framework (in addition to Foundation) appears not to be necessary.

`