SPUG: Software to expand contractions?
Tim Maher
tim at consultix-inc.com
Sat Oct 25 12:43:01 CDT 2003
Dudes,
I'm getting complaints from some early reviewers of my book
about all the "contractions" I'm using in my writing!
So last night I set out to write a Perl script to make changes
like the following:
That's => That is
He's => He is
They're => They are
We're => We are
Then I realized that the 's ending usually needs replacement by
"is", so I tried
"'s" => ' is'
which doesn't quite work, because of the undesirability of changing
Larry's hat => Larry is hat
After making an exception for that case, I found other complications,
such as
wouldn't => would not
can't => can not
These follow different rules, because the 'wouldn' loses its 'n', but the
'can' doesn't!
So at that point I realized that this is a bigger problem than I first
thought, and decided to look for a solution on CPAN. Searching for
"contractions" didn't turn up anything relevant, so now I'm wondering if
anybody knows of a module that will do this job -- convert a standard set of English
contractions into their expanded forms.
Can't y'all gimme the help I'm searchin' for?
-Tim
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| Tim Maher (206) 781-UNIX (866) DOC-PERL (866) DOC-UNIX |
| tim(AT)Consultix-Inc.Com TeachMeUnix.Com TeachMePerl.Com |
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| UNIX Fundamentals Class: 11/10-13 Perl Class: 12/01-05 |
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