C++ || Simple Spell Checker Using A Hash Table

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Click Here For Updated Version Of Program


The following is another programming assignment which was presented in a C++ Data Structures course. This assignment was used to gain more experience using hash tables.

REQUIRED KNOWLEDGE FOR THIS PROGRAM

Hash Table - What Is It?
How To Create A Spell Checker
How To Read Data From A File
Strtok - Split Strings Into Tokens
#include 'HashTable.h'
The Dictionary File - Download Here

== OVERVIEW ==

This program first reads words from a dictionary file, and inserts them into a hash table.

The dictionary file consists of a list of 62,454 correctly spelled lowercase words, separated by whitespace. The words are inserted into the hash table, with each bucket growing dynamically as necessary to hold all of the incoming data.

After the reading of the dictionary file is complete, the program prompts the user for input. After input is obtained, each word that the user enteres into the program is looked up within the hash table to see if it exists. If the user entered word exists within the hash table, then that word is spelled correctly. If not, a list of possible suggested spelling corrections is displayed to the screen.

== HASH TABLE STATISTICS ==

To better understand how hash tables work, this program reports the following statistics to the screen:

• The total size of the hash table.
• The size of the largest hash table bucket.
• The size of the smallest hash table bucket.
• The total number of buckets used.
• The average hash table bucket size.

A timer is used in this program to time (in seconds) how long it takes to read in the dictionary file. The program also saves each hash table bucket into a separate output .txt file. This is used to further visualize how the hash table data is internally being stored within memory.

== SPELL CHECKING ==

The easiest way to generate corrections for a spell checker is via a trial and error method. If we assume that the misspelled word contains only a single error, we can try all possible corrections and look each up in the dictionary.

Example:


wird: bird gird ward word wild wind wire wiry

Traditionally, spell checkers look for four possible errors: a wrong letter (“wird”), also knows as alteration. An inserted letter (“woprd”), a deleted letter (“wrd”), or a pair of adjacent transposed letters (“wrod”).

The easiest of which is checking for a wrong letter. For example, if a word isnt found in the dictionary, all variants of that word can be looked up by changing one letter. Given the user input “wird,” a one letter variant can be “aird”, “bird”, “cird”, etc. through “zird.” Then “ward”, “wbrd”, “wcrd” through “wzrd”, can be checked, and so forth. Whenever a match is found within the dictionary, the spelling correction should be displayed to the screen.

For a detailed analysis how the other methods can be constructed, click here.

===== SIMPLE SPELL CHECKER =====

This program uses a custom template.h class. To obtain the code for that class, click here.


QUICK NOTES:
The highlighted lines are sections of interest to look out for.

The code is heavily commented, so no further insight is necessary. If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment below.

Remember to include the data file.

Once compiled, you should get this as your output

Loading dictionary....Complete!

--------------------------------------------------
Total dictionary words = 61286
Hash table size = 19000
Largest bucket size = 13 items at index #1551
Smallest bucket size = 1 items at index #11
Total buckets used = 18217
Total percent of hash table used = 95.8789%
Average bucket size = 3.36422 items

Dictionary loaded in 1.861 secs!
--------------------------------------------------

>> Please enter a sentence: wird

** wird: bird, gird, ward, weird, word, wild, wind, wire, wired, wiry,

Number of words spelled incorrectly: 1

Do you want to enter another sentence? (y/n): y

--------------------------------------------------

>> Please enter a sentence: woprd

** woprd: word,

Number of words spelled incorrectly: 1

Do you want to enter another sentence? (y/n): y

--------------------------------------------------

>> Please enter a sentence: wrd

** wrd: ard, ord, ward, wed, word,

Number of words spelled incorrectly: 1

Do you want to enter another sentence? (y/n): y

--------------------------------------------------

>> Please enter a sentence: wrod

** wrod: brod, trod, wood, rod, word,

Number of words spelled incorrectly: 1

Do you want to enter another sentence? (y/n): y

--------------------------------------------------

>> Please enter a sentence: New! Safe and efective

** efective: defective, effective, elective,

Number of words spelled incorrectly: 1

Do you want to enter another sentence? (y/n): y

--------------------------------------------------

>> Please enter a sentence: This is a sentance with no corections gygyuigigigiug

** sentance: sentence,

** corections: corrections,

** gygyuigigigiug: No spelling suggestion found...

Number of words spelled incorrectly: 3

Do you want to enter another sentence? (y/n): n

BYE!!

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4 Responses to C++ || Simple Spell Checker Using A Hash Table

  1. Avatar Pintos says:

    What code does the header file hashtable.h consists?

  2. Avatar Matt Fomich says:

    Very nicely done, thanks for posting this.

  3. Avatar George Brown says:

    is there i c version of this code?

Leave a Reply to PintosCancel reply