infinite loop when input mapped to null due to missing symbols

What steps will reproduce the problem?
1. train a very small model
2. call phonetisaurus-g2p with a word as input which uses only "unknown" 
symbols:
   phonetisaurus-g2p --model=foo.fst --nbest=3 --input=foobar

What is the expected output? What do you see instead?

I do this during work on my diploma thesis when experimenting with "very small" 
models: when all symbols of the input are mapped to null, phonetisaurus seems 
to enter an infinite loop instead of bailing out / complaining / producing 
empty output

What version of the product are you using? On what operating system?

I use phonetisaurus 0.7.8 on SuSE linux 12.3 (3.7.10-1.1-desktop, amd64)

Please provide any additional information below.

adding a check for an empty vector entry fixes the issue for me (see attached 
patch)

Original issue reported on code.google.com by merz.mat...@googlemail.com on 17 Jun 2013 at 12:46

Attachments:

phonetisaurus_empty-list.patch

cesine / phonetisaurus

infinite loop when input mapped to null due to missing symbols #25