webster-search.pl

#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;
use Encode 'encode';
my $search_term = uc join(' ',@ARGV) . "\n";
my $entry_pattern = qr/^[A-Z][A-Z0-9' ;-]*$/;
my $search_pattern = qr/^$search_term/;

my %index = (
  A => 601,
  B => 1796502,
  C => 3293436,
  D => 6039049,
  E => 7681559,
  F => 8833301,
  G => 10034091,
  H => 10926753,
  I => 11930292,
  J => 13148994,
  K => 13380269,
  L => 13586035,
  M => 14532408,
  N => 15916448,
  O => 16385339,
  P => 17042770,
  Q => 19439223,
  R => 19610041,
  S => 21015876,
  T => 24379537,
  U => 25941093,
  V => 26405366,
  W => 26925697,
  X => 27748359,
  Y => 27774096,
  Z => 27866401,
);

my @script_path = split '/', $0;
pop @script_path;
my $dictionary_path = join '/',  @script_path, 'webster-1913.txt';
open my $dict, '<:encoding(latin1)', $dictionary_path or die $!;
my $start = $index{ substr $search_term, 0, 1 };
seek $dict, $start, 0;

my $found_match = undef;
while (<$dict>) {
  next unless $_ =~ $entry_pattern;

  if ($_ =~ $search_term) {
    my $output = $_;
    while (1) {
     my $next_line = readline $dict;
     if ($next_line =~ /$entry_pattern/) {
       seek $dict, -length($next_line), 1;
       last;
     }
     $output .= $next_line;
    }
    print encode('UTF-8', $output);
    $found_match = 1;
  }
  last if $found_match && ($search_term cmp $_) == -1;
}