That was done by Tom Duff, I believe before he came to Bell Labs. I might have brought the idea with me from Toronto. The code, or at least a simple version of it, is in The Unix Programming Environment starting around page 208. We credit Tom in the endnotes for the chapter.-robOn Mon, Jan 4, 2021 at 8:00 PM Ed Bradford <egbegb2@gmail.com> wrote:Thank you for responding. My recollection is that one of yourfolks put the spelling corrector into the shell so when I typedthe wrong letters for a directory or file, the spelling correctwould help. It was particularly noticible in the "chdir - cd" shellcommand. Do you recall any such person and if so, did he (and itwas a he) use Peter's work?There was a distance algorithm that was far better than anything I've seensince. Yes, please send me Peter's contact information.I amEd Bradford, Ph.D. Physics, retired from IBMPflugerville,TXPS: We chatted sometime in 1980 or so aboutadding database capabilities to the interactiveenvironment. I was interested in adding it tothe Bourne Shell at the time.On Sun, Jan 3, 2021 at 2:23 PM M Douglas McIlroy <m.douglas.mcilroy@dartmouth.edu> wrote:> I was a BTL person for 8 years between 1976 and 1984. During> that time there was a spelling corrector that was better than> anything I see today. There was a concept of "spelling distance"> that corrected a whole bunch of stuff that even today cannot be > corrected.> Who in that era worked on spelling correction at BTL. I was at> Columbus BTL (1976-1979) and Whippany BTL (1979-1984).Peter Nelson made an interface to spell(1) that showed putative errors in context. I believe it could suggest corrections. I remember the project; I installed hooks for it in spell(1). I don't remember the date, but it would probably not have been early enough for you to have used it in Columbus.If there's a chance that Peter's program is the one you rememberand you'd like to get in touch with him, I can give you hisemail address.Doug--Advice is judged by results, not by intentions.Cicero