It would be useful for dictd to be able to forward lookups (DEFINE and MATCH
protocol requests) for unknown words to other dict servers (eg, the server at
dict.org).

For users with fast connections (and equally fast remote dict servers), perhaps
this feature could be set to forward always, so that the user is always presented
with material from upstream dict servers if said material is different from what
dictd has. There should be a way for clients to disable this behavior on a per-
request basis, though.

- -- System Information
Debian Release: 3.0
Architecture: i386
Kernel: Linux cornerstone 2.4.17 #2 Wed Dec 26 02:15:03 PST 2001 i686
Locale: LANG=en_US, LC_CTYPE=en_US

Versions of packages dictd depends on:
ii  libc6                         2.2.4-7    GNU C Library: Shared libraries an
iD8DBQE8ZZWztHQW4HWNftkRAgc5AJ4itvrfRSLWf5+0SqBlNUf12Erl8wCeP1y9
RPII2r7ntS4X8Fb+T8cs6zU=
=qq4I
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Alexander Hvostov <root@aoi.dyndns.org> writes:

     If this were implemented, I believe it would have be done by
the client, dict, not by the server. However, I don't think this would
be very useful.  I think one might want a second lookup because the
desired sense of a word wasn't returned at least as often as, perhaps
more often than, because the word was unknown.  Of course, there is no
way one could make a program know when the desired sense wasn't
returned.

     The same result could be obtained with ``dict -h dict.org
<word>'', but, assuming the user has installed all of the dictionaries
packaged for Debian, the results would be less useful than a simple
dict query because dict.org has been very slow to update the
dictionaries on line, although I have forwarded updated databases
regularly.

On my machine:

bob:vc-/2:bob>dict -D
Databases available:
  gcide      The Collaborative International Dictionary of English
  wn         WordNet (r) 1.7
  foldoc     The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (09 FEB 02)
  jargon     Jargon File (4.3.0, 30 APR 2001)
  vera       V.E.R.A. -- Virtual Entity of Relevant Acronyms December 2001
  devil      The Devil's Dictionary (1881-1906)
  elements   The Elements (07Nov00)
  easton     Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary
  hitchcock  Hitchcock's Bible Names Dictionary (late 1800's)
  gazetteer  U.S. Gazetteer (1990)
  world95    The CIA World Factbook (1995)

On dict.org:

bob:vc-/2:bob>dict -h dict.org -D
Databases available:
  elements   Elements database 20001107
  web1913    Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)
  wn         WordNet (r) 1.6
  gazetteer  U.S. Gazetteer (1990)
  jargon     Jargon File (4.2.3, 23 NOV 2000)
  foldoc     The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (13 Mar 01)
  easton     Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary
  hitchcock  Hitchcock's Bible Names Dictionary (late 1800's)
  devils     THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY ((C)1911 Released April 15 1993)
  world95    The CIA World Factbook (1995)
  vera       V.E.R.A. -- Virtual Entity of Relevant Acronyms 13 March 2001

     The above comparison is dishonest in one respect - I have not
uploaded dict-world95 to Debian.  I held off on this, waiting for the
2001 edition, and, since it became available, I have procrastinated
packaging it.

Bob

Sure there is. Look it up again with a command-line option.

If this is implemented in the client, then the server cannot cache the
replies.

Regards,

Alex.

o-- K+ w--- !O M(+) V-- PS+++ PE-- Y+ PGP+(+++) t* 5-- X-- R tv b- DI
D+++ G e h! !r y
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