[Wiktionary-l] Re: [Wikitech-l] Export Dictionary?

Tue May 17 09:54:31 UTC 2005

Brian Suda wrote:

>I have been on this list awhile, when i originally joined i was
>interesting in the possibility of exporting the wiktionary data as
>.dict format. Now that the newest version of OSX 10.4 has a built-in
>dictionary that uses the dict:// to look-up words i was interested to
>see if anyone on the technicaly side would like to explore the
>possibility of either exporting the Wiktionary database as .dict
>format, or run a dictionary daemon that would access the wiktionary
>database server and return dict entries. It would be read-only, but it
>would be another interesting way to access the wiktionary besides the
>web interface.
>
>Does anyone on the tech list know if this is even possible? I'm not
>asking you to do it (i can write the export), i was wondering if there
>is some sort of database schema available to extract the data into
>dict format, or are the entries too fragmented to even attempt an
>export?
>
>-brian
>
Hoi,
I read your mail with intrest. It made me look into what the .dict 
format is. It is described in RFC 2229. It allows for people to look up 
information from their computer and the information is delivered from 
one of the many hosts that may hold the requested information. As Angela 
said in her reply to your post, we are working on a new iteration of 
Wiktionary that is going by the name of "Ultimate Wiktionary". This will 
have a relational database at its heart. It is intended to have content 
in all languages and the first challenge is to make it work in the first 
place. The second challenge is to create a User Interface that 
translates to all these languages and the third challenge is to have an 
import and export mechanism, preferably using a standards based XML scheme.

We hope to show something at the Wikimania event. In your mail you want 
to export the wiktionary data. The consequence is that when you choose 
for export, you will have to do this continually as we hope to increase 
the content of Ultimate Wiktionary dramatically. As far as I understand 
the RFC, there is a need for responding to a request and providing a 
reply in a set format. There is no need to have a database in a specific 
format as long as the respons provided conforms to the RFC.

As the Ultimate Wiktionary is being designed at the moment and as 
Wikidata is being built, this is a time to consider what is needed to 
provide .dict functionality. This functionality will be included when 
someone does the programming or when someone finds the funds to strap 
the .dict functionality on top of Ultimate Wiktionary. At this time it 
is premature to think about exporting from UW as UW has not been built 
yet. It will however be possible to do so.

Some of the current wiktionaries can be parsed into information as they 
are highly structured. Some will prove an interesting challenge to 
convert to any other format. Because of its lack of structure and 
consistency it is as closed as any proprietary format would be. Even the 
names of an article is not necessarily the name of the associated word 
as some Wiktionaries still capitalise the first character of a word.

One problem I see with exporting content from Wiktionary is the GNU-FDL 
requirement to maintain the history of the contributors. For the UW, I 
think it can be solved by adding the history information on the talk 
page. The necessity for UW stems from the likelyhood that many 
wiktionaries, if not all, may merge into the Ultimate Wiktionary and be 
abandoned.

Thanks,
    GerardM.