TIL that there is a URI scheme for dictionaries, and...

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Ed Summers

TIL that there is a URI scheme for dictionaries, and curl supports it:

curl dict://dict.org/define:mastodon

Like 2 2 Nov 2023 at 17:28 | Open on social.coop

30 comments

brennen

@edsu i sort of forgot that the url scheme exists, but i use the dict client and dict.org on like a daily basis. it is such an amazing resource.

2 Nov 2023 at 17:32 | Open on federation.p1k3.com

Frost, Wolffucker 🐺:therian:

@edsu Oh hey! We use dictd /locally/ for our dictionary (but with the dict client program). Didn't know there was a URI scheme and shit. :3

2 Nov 2023 at 17:56 | Open on masto.brightfur.net

Malinux

@edsu
The output doesn't look like it's meant for humans, so I always pipe it into a markdown reader.

wotsa ()
{
def="$(curl -s dict://dict.org/define:$1: | grep -vP '^\d\d\d ')";
if [ "$def" = "" ]; then
echo no definition;
else
echo "$def" | mdcat -p;
fi
}

Abderian \Ab[3mde"ri[0man, a. [From Abdera,
a town in Thrace, of which place
Democritus, the Laughing Philosopher,
was a native.] Given to laughter;
inclined to foolish or incessant
merriment. [1913 Webster] .

1 2 Nov 2023 at 18:22 | Open on linuxrocks.online

Ed Summers

@malin I like it! And I didn't know about mdcat -- now I'm doing the same.

I dropped the -P for the grep since that's not available on MacOS with installing GNU grep. It still seems to work ok?

2 Nov 2023 at 18:38 | Open on social.coop

Malinux

@edsu The '-P' is for perl-like regex, so I can remove (-v) lines starting with (^) three digits (\d\d\d).

But there are loads of other ways of doing the same thing.

2 Nov 2023 at 18:57 | Open on linuxrocks.online

Ed Summers

@malin yeah, the regex works on MacOS without it.

2 Nov 2023 at 19:08 | Open on social.coop

Jakob Voß

@edsu @malin too sad Wikimedia projects don't support DICT protocol: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T31229

2 Nov 2023 at 20:29 | Open on openbiblio.social

Sammy (is just a fox 🦊)

@nichtich @edsu @malin oooooh, might be one to revisit now.. :blobfoxthinkowo:

3 Nov 2023 at 9:43 | Open on wikis.world

Seirdy

@theresnotime @nichtich @edsu @malin we need a dicts protocol for dict with TLS.

3 Nov 2023 at 10:03 | Open on pleroma.envs.net

🚲

@malin @edsu or, you could install dictd which comes with a client, and you can also host all the dictionaries available on dict.org locally :D

3 Nov 2023 at 13:13 | Open on outerheaven.club

Brett Stauffer

@malin @edsu
On definitions with indented content I was getting formatting garbage displayed with mdcat, so I tried bat ( https://github.com/sharkdp/bat/ ) with plain style instead and got much better results:

~/home/ [0] % bat bin/dict
File: bin/dict
/usr/bin/zsh
echo def="$(curl -s dict://dict.org/define:$1: | grep -vP '“\d\d\d')";
if [ "$def" = "" ;
then
echo No definition;
else
echo "$def" | bat --style plain;
fi ~/home/
[0] % dict dictionary

Dictionary \Dic"tion*a*ry\, n.; pl. {Dictionaries}. [Cf. F. dictionnaire. See {Diction}.]

1. A book containing the words of a language, arranged alphabetically, with explanations of their meanings; a lexicon; a vocabulary; a wordbook.

[1913 Webster] I applied myself to the perusal of our writers; and noting whatever might be of use to ascertain or illustrate any word or phrase, accumulated in time the materials of a dictionary. —-Johnson. [1913 Webster]

2. Hence, a book containing the words belonging to any system or province of knowledge, arranged alphabetically; as, a dictionary of medicine or of botany; a biographical dictionary.

[1913 Webster] ~/home/ [0] & _

11 Nov 2023 at 15:01 | Open on mas.to

4censord :neocat_flag_pan:

@edsu
> that there is a URI scheme for dictionaries

TIL

> and curl supports it

Not surpised at all

2 Nov 2023 at 21:19 | Open on unfug.social

DELETED

@edsu looks like the DICT protocol rfc2229. It is trivial to set up a dict server on localhost (dictd is available on major gnu/Linux distros) so there's no need for an internet connection to lookup words using this protocol.

And of course there's a built-in client in emacs.

2 Nov 2023 at 22:18 | Open on hostux.social