Lexitron

A regex search engine for the English language.

Requirements

The only major requirement is Python. It should work with other versions, but I have only tested Lexitron with Python 2.7.

I did not write Lexitron to work on Windows, although it is a simple enough package that I don't see why it shouldn't.

If you try to install Lexitron and something goes wrong, let me know what your system details are and I'll try to get it fixed.

Installation and usage

After downloading, navigate inside Lexitron's folder, where you should find a setup.py script. For Linux and OS X users, the install is as easy as

$ sudo python setup.py install

Once the install is complete, you can access Lexitron with the lx command at the terminal.

Usage

Usage is

$ lx [options] expression

where expression is a regular expression and [options] are as follows.

option	function
-a	Search only for common (non-capitalized) words
-A	Search only for proper (capitalized) words
-g	Global search; equivalent to .*expression.*
-c	Case-sensitive search
-n	Print only the number of matches
-x	Print unformatted output

Type $ lx -h for full help text.

Examples

It's safest to put the search expression in quotation marks so that the shell doesn't try to expand wildcards. If the search expression is only alphanumerics, then quotation marks are unnecessary (though they are still a good habit!).

Example 1

A list of English words ending with "icide".

$ lx ".*icide"
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
53 results for /.*icide/
0 proper ~ 53 common
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

aborticide      foeticide       matricide       pesticide       stillicide
acaricide       fratricide      medicide        prolicide       suicide
agricide        fungicide       menticide       pulicide        tyrannicide
algicide        germicide       miticide        raticide        uxoricide
aphicide        giganticide     molluscicide    regicide        vaticide
aphidicide      herbicide       nematicide      rodenticide     verbicide
bacillicide     homicide        ovicide         scabicide       vermicide
bactericide     infanticide     parasiticide    silicide        viricide
deicide         insecticide     parasuicide     sororicide      vulpicide
feticide        larvicide       parricide       spermicide
filicide        liberticide     patricide       sporicide

Example 2

A list of English words that contain the substring "rdb".

$ lx -g rdb
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
21 results for /rdb/
1 proper ~ 20 common
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Standardbred

birdbath          herdbook
birdbrain         herdboy
cardboard         leopardbane
hardback          recordbook
hardbake          standardbearer
hardball          standardbred
hardbeam          swordbill
hardboard         thirdborough
hardboot          wordbook
hardbound         yardbird

Example 3

The number of English words that end in "tion".

$ lx -nx ".*tion"
3449

Example 4

A list of English words with the same double letter appearing twice, except for those whose double letter is a vowel or the letter s (since there so many words of the form *lessness).

$ lx -g "([^aeious])\1.*\1\1"
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
45 results for /([^aeious])\1.*\1\1/
9 proper ~ 36 common
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Allhallowmas
Allhallows
Allhallowtide
Armillariella
Chancellorsville
Dullsville
Gallirallus
Hunnemannia
Llullaillaco

acciaccatura       hillbilly          pellmell           shillyshally
bellpull           huggermugger       pizzazz            skillfully
chiffchaff         hullaballoo        pralltriller       snippersnapper
dillydallier       jellyroll          razzamatazz        villanelle
dillydally         kinnikinnic        razzmatazz         volleyball
dullsville         kinnikinnick       riffraff           volleyballer
flibbertigibbet    millefeuille       rollcollar         whippersnapper
granddaddy         niffnaff           rollerball         willfully
hallalling         parallelling       scuttlebutt        yellowbelly

Example 5

Compare the number of common (i.e. non-capitalized) words that end in "woman" with the number that end in "man".

$ lx -nxa ".*woman"
92

$ lx -nxa ".*(?<\!wo)man"
562

Acknowledgements

For its dictionary, Lexitron uses the fantastic Automatically Generated Inflection Database (AGID) by Kevin Atkinson. See http://wordlist.sourceforge.net/.

License

Lexitron is licensed under GPL v2.

Contact

Questions, bug reports, and feature requests can be filed on the Github issues tracker. Alternately, feel free to email the author directly at h@rothos.com.

In particular, let me know if you discover any Lexitron queries that you think would be good additions to "Examples" section of the README. I would love to collect the best examples that people come across.