7.1.1 Dico Command Line Options

To connect to a particular dictionary server, use the --host option, for example:

$ dico --host dico.org entdeckung

To search in a particular database, use the --database (-d) option. For example, to display definitions from all databases:

$ dico --database '*' entdeckung

Note single quotes around the asterisk.

To get a list of databases offered by the server, use the --dbs (-D) option. In this case you may not give any non-option arguments. For example:

$ dico --dbs

If you wish to get a list of matches, instead of definitions, use the --match (-m) option. For example, the following invocation will display all matches from all the databases:

$ dico --database '*' --match entdeckung

The match mode uses ‘.’ strategy by default (see strategy), which means a server-dependent default strategy, which suits best for interactive spell checking. To select another strategy, use the --strategy (-s) option.

If the remote server supports ‘xlev’ experimental capability (see XLEV, you may use the --levdist (--levenshtein-distance) option to set maximum Levenshtein distance, for example:

$ dico --levdist 2 --match entdeckung

Note that setting the distance too high is impractical and may imply unnecessary strain on the server.

To get a list of available matching strategies, with descriptions, use the --strategies (-S) option.