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websterParser / WebsterParser

Convert Webster's Unabridged 1913 dictionary in to a more usable format
GNU General Public License v3.0
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Issue with special characters being replaced with question marks within definitions #110

Closed appledispatch closed 9 months ago

appledispatch commented 9 months ago

After installing the 1913 Webster's folder in the macOS Sonoma Dictionaries directory, I'm seeing asterisks and other special characters replaced with question marks within word entries. Is there a way to fix this?

jeffbyrnes commented 9 months ago

These are, unfortunately, present in the source material in most, if not all, cases. You’ll need to look upstream & see if you can submit a ticket or even a patch to the GNU GCIDE project.

You can read about a similar (or same?) issue in #26, specifically please see my comment.

appledispatch commented 9 months ago

Thanks for your quick and helpful reply. The issue you cited in a similar thread is indeed the same problem I'm referring to (question marks in diamonds). I understand now that this is a source code problem as you mentioned.

The way I initially confirmed my suspicions about the missing characters was through an interesting online dictionary project that must be using a different source without these encoding issues present: https://www.websters1913.com/

I will continue to use your version in the macOS Dictionary as it is so incredibly useful and convenient. Thank you for your work on the project and I exhort you to keep it going. Maybe someday these special characters will be fixed in the source project code.

jeffbyrnes commented 9 months ago

@appledispatch you’re welcome! And credit to the original developer @ponychicken, I’ve simply glommed on & contributed where I could.

Interesting to learn about websters1913.com! There’s nothing there that shows the source of their data, so who knows?