In the next article we are going to take a look at SDCV. This tool offers us a dictionary that we can use in the terminal from our Ubuntu system. Today, the Internet has put many tools at our fingertips to help us optimize learning processes. After all, Google can give us definitions of words directly in its search results, although this will not be the case when we do not have an available connection.
When we do not have the possibility to search online for the definition of a word, a locally stored dictionary it can be really useful. For Ubuntu, we will be able to have several functional options, and among them we find SDCV. This tool is the command line version of the StarDict extensible GUI dictionary application. We will also be able to run it on the main operating systems, including Windows, GNU / Linux and BSD variants.
General characteristics of SDCV
- sdcv is a simple cross-platform text-based tool for working with dictionaries in StarDict Format.
- Every word of the 'List of words'can be a string with a leading' / 'to use a fuzzy search algorithm, with a '|' to use the full text search and the string that can contain '?' and '*' for the regular expression search.
- We will be able to find dictionary files to incorporate into the SDCV search function. In case of not finding the dictionary file that we need, and although this requires a certain degree of knowledge, we can also create our own dictionary.
- In addition to the potential for simultaneous searching of multiple dictionaries at once, SDCV also benefits from configurable search patterns.
It can see more information about this tool in the man page offered on Ubuntu.com or on your GitHub page.
Install SDCV on Ubuntu
We will be able install this tool on Ubuntu easily using APT. To proceed with the installation, we will have to open a terminal (Ctrl + Alt + T) and use the command in it:
sudo apt install sdcv
Once the installation is finished, we can confirm that everything went well checking the program version just installed by typing in the same terminal:
sdcv -v
Confirmed that everything was correct during the installation, we will be able to call SDCV, but we will not get a response since we have not installed any dictionary yet.
Install a dictionary file
First, we will need find a dictionary file that SDCV can handle (DICT format). We will be able to find some on the home page of StarDict.
For this example and in the absence of a dictionary in Spanish, I will use the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
The file that we are going to download from the previous link, comes compressed as a tarball. We will have to unzip it and put it in the correct directory so that SDCV recognizes it. In case this directory does not exist, it will have to be created. We will achieve this by typing in the terminal (Ctrl + Alt + T) something similar to the following command:
sudo tar -xjvf NOMBREARCHIVODESCARGADO -C /usr/share/stardict/dic
To use the code above, replace 'DOWNLOADED FILE NAME'with the full name and extension of the downloaded tar file.
At this point, we will be able to run SDCV from terminal with the following command:
sdcv PALABRA
Si the search result presents multiple options So that we can choose, we will be able to specify what we are interested in by selecting the corresponding number:
Uninstall SDCV
Removing this program is as simple as opening a terminal and typing into it:
sudo apt remove sdcv
To finish, say that users who find this tool interesting may also find it interesting to use Wiki o Wikipedia2Text.
Wiki will allow you to quickly search Wikipedia from our terminal and view a synopsis of any term covered by the encyclopedia maintained by the world community.
Wikipedia2Text is a small Shell script that will allow us to consult Wikipedia articles from the console. We can also open the selected article in any text browser. It currently supports around 30 Wikipedia languages.
With SDCV, Wikit, and Wikipedia2Text, anyone can quickly find information and definitions for almost anything without leaving the terminal.