Exflect is an Elixir inflection library for pluralization/singularization of English words.
If available in Hex, the package can be installed
by adding exflect
to your list of dependencies in mix.exs
:
def deps do
[
{:exflect, "~> 1.0.0"}
]
end
Documentation can be found on HexDocs.
iex> Exflect.pluralize("leaf")
"leaves"
iex> Exflect.singularize("leaves")
"leaf"
iex> Exflect.inflect("leaf", 0)
"leaves"
iex> Exflect.inflect("leaf", 1)
"leaf"
iex> Exflect.inflect("leaf", 2)
"leaves"
iex> Exflect.pluralize(" LEAF ", match_style: true)
" LEAVES "
iex> Exflect.pluralize(" Leaf ", match_style: true)
" Leaves "
Exflect.singularize(" LEAVES ", match_style: iex> true)
" LEAF "
iex> Exflect.inflect(" LEAF ", 2, match_style: true)
" LEAVES "
The existing one seems to not longer be maintained, and it's quite inaccurate, and not very performant(mostly because of the heavy reliance on Regex).
Here are some accuracy comparisons based on the test suite compiled from other OSS inflection libraries. I've purposely removed any test data that follows the default "add 's'"/"remove 's'" rule, as it has the least value when comparing accuracy. There are about 1500 words being tested. The performance results below are also based on the same test set.
exflect | 93.5% |
---|---|
inflex | 76.0% |
It would be possible to get Exflect higher scorewise, but that 10% is a lot of edge cases, or places where varying libraries disagree. Words like "elk" vs "elks", "buffalo" vs "buffaloes" vs "buffalos". Also Exflect doesn't currently handle phrases like "lady in waiting" correctly. You'll get "lady in waitings" rather than "ladies in waiting".
Here are some performance benchmarks:
Operating System: macOS
CPU Information: Apple M1 Pro
Number of Available Cores: 10
Available memory: 16 GB
Elixir 1.15.3
Erlang 26.0
JIT enabled: true
Benchmark suite executing with the following configuration:
warmup: 2 s
time: 5 s
memory time: 1 s
reduction time: 1 s
parallel: 1
inputs: none specified
Estimated total run time: 36 s
Benchmarking exflect ...
Benchmarking inflex ...
Benchmarking exflect_check ...
Benchmarking exflect_match_style ...
Calculating statistics...
Formatting results...
Name ips average deviation median 99th %
exflect 907.90 1.10 ms ±3.40% 1.09 ms 1.24 ms
exflect_match_style 305.59 3.27 ms ±2.10% 3.26 ms 3.47 ms
exflect_check 27.16 36.82 ms ±0.76% 36.76 ms 37.46 ms
inflex 19.08 52.42 ms ±0.35% 52.42 ms 52.76 ms
Comparison:
exflect 907.90
exflect_match_style 305.59 - 2.97x slower +2.17 ms
exflect_check 27.16 - 33.42x slower +35.71 ms
inflex 19.08 - 47.59x slower +51.32 ms
Memory usage statistics:
Name average deviation median 99th %
exflect 2.20 MB ±0.00% 2.20 MB 2.20 MB
exflect_match_style 6.04 MB ±0.00% 6.04 MB 6.04 MB
exflect_check 6.41 MB ±0.00% 6.41 MB 6.41 MB
inflex 7.93 MB ±0.00% 7.93 MB 7.93 MB
Comparison:
exflect 2.20 MB
exflect_match_style 6.04 MB - 2.75x memory usage +3.84 MB
exflect_check 6.41 MB - 2.92x memory usage +4.21 MB
inflex 7.93 MB - 3.61x memory usage +5.74 MB
Reduction count statistics:
Name Reduction count
exflect 0.104 M
exflect_match_style 0.36 M - 3.40x reduction count +0.25 M
exflect_check 1.05 M - 10.09x reduction count +0.95 M
inflex 1.40 M - 13.40x reduction count +1.30 M
**All measurements for reduction count were the same**
You can run these benchmarks yourself by running the test suite with the benchmark
tag:
mix test --include benchmark
It's still a work in progress, as there are some edge cases that aren't being covered, and some code clean up I'd like to do, but I don't imagine the API will change significantly as it's fairly straightforward.
The existing Elixir library Inflex and the Python library Inflect were both crucial in the devlopment of this code, so thanks to them for their work.
MIT License
Copyright (c) 2023 Peter Richards
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.