README.md
# Dictionary
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[ruby-dictionary](https://github.com/mhuggins/ruby-dictionary) provides a
simple dictionary that allows for checking existence of words and finding a
subset of words given a prefix.
## Installation
Add this line to your application's Gemfile:
gem 'ruby-dictionary'
And then execute:
$ bundle
Or install it yourself as:
$ gem install ruby-dictionary
## Usage
A dictionary is created by passing an array of strings to the initializer.
dictionary = Dictionary.new(%w(a ab abs absolute absolutes absolutely
absolve be bee been bees bend bent best))
Alternatively, words can be read in from a file (raw or gzip compressed) as
well.
dictionary = Dictionary.from_file('path/to/uncompressed.txt')
dictionary = Dictionary.from_file('path/to/compressed.txt.gz')
It is assumed that the file contains one word per line. However, a separator
can be passed to the method as an optional second parameter if that's not the
case.
dictionary = Dictionary.from_file('path/to/uncompressed.txt', ' ')
dictionary = Dictionary.from_file('path/to/compressed.txt.gz', ',')
Once a dictionary is loaded, the `#exists?` method can be used to determine if
a word exists.
dictionary.exists?('bees') # => true
dictionary.exists?('wasps') # => false
The `#starting_with` method returns a sorted array of all words starting with
the provided string.
dictionary.starting_with('bee') # => ["bee", "been", "bees"]
dictionary.starting_with('foo') # => []
The `#prefixes` method returns a sorted array of all the words appearing in the
beginning of the provided string.
dictionary.prefixes('abstract') # => ["a", "ab", "abs"]
dictionary.prefixes('bend') # => ["be", "bend"]
### Case Sensitivity
By default, a new `Dictionary` is case-insensitive, meaning "bee", "Bee", and
"BEE" are all considered to be the same, regardless of adding to the dictionary
or searching within it.
However, you can choose to use case-sensitive dictionary by passing an optional
`true` parameter to both the `#new` and `#from_file` methods.
dictionary = Dictionary.new(%w(Alpha Beta), true)
dictionary.exists?('Alpha') # => true
dictionary.exists?('alpha') # => false
dictionary = Dictionary.from_file('restaurants.txt', "\n", true)
dictionary.starting_with('Mc') # => ["McDonald's"]
dictionary.starting_with('mc') # => []
Additionally, you can determine whether a dictionary is case-sensitive via the
`#case_sensitive?` method.
dictionary = Dictionary.new([])
dictionary.case_sensitive? # => false
dictionary = Dictionary.new([], true)
dictionary.case_sensitive? # => true
## Contributing
1. Fork it
2. Create your feature branch (`git checkout -b my-new-feature`)
3. Commit your changes (`git commit -am 'Add some feature'`)
4. Push to the branch (`git push origin my-new-feature`)
5. Create new Pull Request