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NAME
patgen - generate patterns for TeX hyphenation
SYNOPSIS
patgen dictionary_file pattern_file patout_file translate_file
DESCRIPTION
This manual page is not meant to be exhaustive. See also the Info file or manual Web2C: A TeX
implementation available as part of the TeX Live distribution or at http://tug.org/web2c.
The patgen program reads the dictionary_file containing a list of hyphenated words and the pattern_file
containing previously-generated patterns (if any) for a particular language (not a complete TeX source
file; see below), and produces the patout_file with (previously- plus newly-generated) hyphenation
patterns for that language. The translate_file defines language specific values for the parameters
left_hyphen_min and right_hyphen_min used by TeX's hyphenation algorithm and the external representation
of the lower and upper case version(s) of all `letters' of that language. Further details of the pattern
generation process such as hyphenation levels and pattern lengths are requested interactively from the
user's terminal. Optionally patgen creates a new dictionary file pattmp.n showing the good and bad
hyphens found by the generated patterns, where n is the highest hyphenation level.
The patterns generated by patgen can be read by initex for use in hyphenating words. For a real-life
example of patgen's output, see $TEXMFMAIN/tex/generic/hyphen/hyphen.tex, which contains the patterns TeX
uses for English by default. At some sites, patterns for (many) other languages may be available, and
the local tex programs may have them preloaded.
All filenames must be complete; no adding of default extensions or path searching is done.
FILE FORMATS
Letters
When initex digests hyphenation patterns, TeX first expands macros and the result must entirely
consist of digits (hyphenation levels), dots (`.', edge of a word), and letters. In pattern files for
non-English languages letters are often represented by macros or other expandable constructs. For
the purpose of patgen these are just character sequences, subject to the condition that no such
sequence is a prefix of another one.
Dictionary file
A dictionary file contains a weighted list of hyphenated words, one word per line starting in column
1. A digit in column 1 indicates a global word weight (initially =1) applicable to all following
words up to the next global word weight. A digit at some intercharacter position indicates a weight
for that position only.
The hyphens in a word are indicated by `-', `*', or `.' (or their replacements as defined in the
translate file) for hyphens yet to be found, `good' hyphens (correctly found by the patterns), and
`bad' hyphens (erroneously found by the patterns) respectively; when reading a dictionary file `*' is
treated like `-' and `.' is ignored.
Pattern file
A pattern file contains only patterns in the format above, e.g., from a previous run of patgen. It
may not contain any TeX comments or control sequences. For instance, this is not a valid pattern
file:
% this is a pattern file read by TeX.
\patterns{%
...
}
It can only contain the actual patterns, i.e., the `...'.
Translate file
A translate file starts with a line containing the values of left_hyphen_min in columns 1-2,
right_hyphen_min in columns 3-4, and either a blank or the replacement for one of the "hyphen"
characters `-', `*', and `.' in columns 5, 6, and 7. (Input lines are padded with blanks as for many
TeX related programs.)
Each following line defines one `letter': an arbitrary delimiter character in column 1, followed by
one or more external representations of that character (first the `lower' case one used for output),
each one terminated by the delimiter and the whole sequence terminated by another delimiter.
If the translate file is empty, the values left_hyphen_min=2, right_hyphen_min=3, and the 26 lower
case letters a...z with their upper case representations A...Z are assumed.
Terminal input
After reading the translate_file and any previously-generated patterns from pattern_file, patgen
requests input from the user's terminal.
First the integer values of hyph_start and hyph_finish, the lowest and highest hyphenation level for
which patterns are to be generated. The value of hyph_start should be larger than any hyphenation
level already present in pattern_file.
Then, for each hyphenation level, the integer values of pat_start and pat_finish, the smallest and
largest pattern length to be analyzed, as well as good weight, bad weight, and threshold, the weights
for good and bad hyphens and a weight threshold for useful patterns.
Finally the decision (`y' or `Y' vs. anything else) whether or not to produce a hyphenated word list.
FILES
$TEXMFMAIN/tex/generic/hyphen/hyphen.tex
The original hyphenation patterns for English, by Donald Knuth and Frank Liang.
http://www.ctan.org/pkg/ushyph
Additional hyphenation patterns for English, extended by Gerard Kuiken.
http://www.ctan.org/pkg/hyph-utf8
Collected hyphenation patterns for many languages in many formats.
http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/language/
General CTAN directory for patterns and support for many other languages.
SEE ALSO
Frank Liang and Peter Breitenlohner, patgen.web.
Frank Liang, Word hy-phen-a-tion by com-puter, STAN-CS-83-977, Stanford University Ph.D. thesis, 1983,
http://tug.org/docs/liang.
Donald E. Knuth, The TeXbook, Addison-Wesley, 1986, ISBN 0-201-13447-0, Appendix H.
AUTHORS
Frank Liang wrote the first version of this program. Peter Breitenlohner made a substantial revision in
1991 for TeX 3. The first version was published as the appendix to the TeXware technical report. Howard
Trickey originally ported it to Unix.