That was done by Tom Duff, I believe before he came to Bell Labs. I might have brought the idea with me from Toronto. The code, or at least a simple version of it, is in The Unix Programming Environment starting around page 208. We credit Tom in the endnotes for the chapter. -rob On Mon, Jan 4, 2021 at 8:00 PM Ed Bradford wrote: > Thank you for responding. My recollection is that one of your > folks put the spelling corrector into the shell so when I typed > the wrong letters for a directory or file, the spelling correct > would help. It was particularly noticible in the "chdir - cd" shell > command. Do you recall any such person and if so, did he (and it > was a he) use Peter's work? > > There was a distance algorithm that was far better than anything I've seen > since. Yes, please send me Peter's contact information. > > I am > > Ed Bradford, Ph.D. Physics, retired from IBM > Pflugerville,TX > egbegb2@gmail.com > > PS: We chatted sometime in 1980 or so about > adding database capabilities to the interactive > environment. I was interested in adding it to > the Bourne Shell at the time. > > On Sun, Jan 3, 2021 at 2:23 PM M Douglas McIlroy < > m.douglas.mcilroy@dartmouth.edu> wrote: > >> > I was a BTL person for 8 years between 1976 and 1984. During >> > that time there was a spelling corrector that was better than >> > anything I see today. There was a concept of "spelling distance" >> > that corrected a whole bunch of stuff that even today cannot be > >> corrected. >> >> > Who in that era worked on spelling correction at BTL. I was at >> > Columbus BTL (1976-1979) and Whippany BTL (1979-1984). >> >> Peter Nelson made an interface to spell(1) that showed putative errors in >> context. I believe it could suggest corrections. I remember the project; I >> installed hooks for it in spell(1). I don't remember the date, but it would >> probably not have been early enough for you to have used it in Columbus. >> >> If there's a chance that Peter's program is the one you remember >> and you'd like to get in touch with him, I can give you his >> email address. >> >> Doug >> > > > -- > Advice is judged by results, not by intentions. > Cicero > >