Richard Suchenwirth - Peter Lewerin needed one for Tcl-PLEAC (see BOOK Programming Language Examples Alike Cookbook), so here goes (never written that many returns in my Tcl life ;-): But see Custom curry on how to style such switch branches without a mass of returns, and for German plurals ;-)
LV Richard, is this based on the way that other PLEAC recipes are written? The reason that I ask is that the Perl community has a number of modules for dealing with Natural Languages, including one that generates plurals for English, I believe. There might be some code that could be used for inspiration there. RS: No, I didn't look hard at Perl-PLEAC, just stumbled over some pages in Tcl-Pleac. I noticed Peter had no content for this header, so I surfed the web, got me the plural rules, and wrote it down in some evening minutes. But I think it exposes the power of switch, regexp sufficiently...
proc en:pl word {
switch -- $word {
man {return men}
foot {return feet}
goose {return geese}
louse {return lice}
mouse {return mice}
ox {return oxen}
tooth {return teeth}
calf - elf - half - hoof - leaf - loaf - scarf
- self - sheaf - thief - wolf
{return [string range $word 0 end-1]ves}
knife - life - wife
{return [string range $word 0 end-2]ves}
auto - kangaroo - kilo - memo
- photo - piano - pimento - pro - solo - soprano - studio
- tattoo - video - zoo
{return ${word}s}
cod - deer - fish - offspring - perch - sheep - trout
- species
{return $word}
genus {return genera}
phylum {return phyla}
radius {return radii}
cherub {return cherubim}
mythos {return mythoi}
phenomenon {return phenomena}
formula {return formulae}
}
switch -regexp -- $word {
{[ei]x$} {return [string range $word 0 end-2]ices}
{[sc]h$} - {[soxz]$} {return ${word}es}
{[bcdfghjklmnprstvwxz]y$} {return [string range $word 0 end-1]ies}
{child$} {return ${word}ren}
{eau$} {return ${word}x}
{is$} {return [string range $word 0 end-2]es}
{woman$} {return [string range $word 0 end-2]en}
}
return ${word}s
}No warranty, but enjoy, and feel free to improve!
Peter Lewerin (2001-12-29): I patched on a few word inflections in a quick-and-dirty manner just to match the example in the Perl Cookbook. Also fixed a typo.
KPV: This clever function misses two of my favorite English plurals. First is the only word in the English language where to form the plural you drop an s: necropolis -> necropoli (a quick search reveals that only some dictionaries recognize that form [L1 ]).
The other word is one which has 3 different plural forms: octopus. The most common, and most accepted plural form is octopuses, but some hyper-correct word mavens look at the ending and think, aha, Latin and make the plural octopi. The, ultra-hyper-correct mavens point out that the word is in fact Greek, and so argue that the plural should be octopodes'. For more details see [L2 ].
English number reader - Things British - Arts and crafts of Tcl-Tk programming - Natural Languages