NAME
    WordList - Word lists

VERSION
    This document describes version 0.3.2 of WordList (from Perl
    distribution WordList), released on 2018-04-02.

SYNOPSIS
    Use one of the "WordList::*" modules.

DESCRIPTION
    "WordList::*" modules are modules that contain, well, list of words.
    This module, "WordList", serves as a base class and establishes
    convention for such modules.

    "WordList" is an alternative interface for Games::Word::Wordlist and
    "Games::Word::Wordlist::*". Its main difference is: "WordList::*"
    wordlists are read-only/immutable and the modules are designed to have
    low startup overhead. This makes them more suitable for use in CLI
    scripts which often only want to pick a word from one or several lists.

    Words (or phrases) must be put in "__DATA__" section, one per line.
    Putting the wordlist in the "__DATA__" section relieves perl from having
    to parse the list during the loading of the module. To search for words
    or picking some random words from the list, the module also need not
    slurp the whole list into memory (and will not do so unless explicitly
    instructed).

    You must sort your words ascibetically (or by Unicode code point).
    Sorting makes it more convenient to diff different versions of the
    module, as well as performing binary search. If you have a different
    sort order other than ascibetical, you must set package variable $SORT
    with some true value (say, "frequency").

    There must not be any duplicate entry in the word list.

    Since this is a new and non-backward compatible interface from
    Games::Word::Wordlist, I also make some other changes:

    *   Namespace is put outside "Games::"

        Because obviously word lists are not only useful for games.

    *   Interface is simpler

        This is partly due to the list being read-only. The methods provided
        are just:

        - "pick" (pick one or several random entries)

        - "word_exists" (check whether a word is in the list)

        - "each_word" (run code for each entry)

        - "all_words" (return all the words in a list)

        A couple of other functions might be added, with careful
        consideration.

    *   Namespace is more language-neutral and not English-centric

    TODOS:

    *   Interface for random pick from a subset

        Pick $n words of length $L.

        Pick $n words matching regex $re.

    *   Interface to enable faster lookup/caching

METHODS
  new
    Usage:

     $wl = WordList::Module->new => obj

    Constructor.

  each_word
    Usage:

     $wl->each_word($code)

    Call $code for each word in the list. The code will receive the word as
    its first argument.

    If code return -2 will exit early.

  pick
    Usage:

     $wl->pick($n = 1) => list

    Pick $n (default: 1) random word(s) from the list. If there are less
    then $n words in the list, only that many will be returned.

    The algorithm used is from perlfaq ("perldoc -q "random line""), which
    scans the whole list once (a.k.a. each_word() once). The algorithm is
    for returning a single entry and is modified to support returning
    multiple entries.

  word_exists
    Usage:

     $wl->word_exists($word) => bool

    Check whether $word is in the list.

    Algorithm in this implementation is linear scan (O(n)). Check out
    WordList::Role::BinarySearch for an O(log n) implementation, or
    WordList::Role::Bloom for O(1) implementation.

  all_words
    Usage:

     $wl->all_words() => list

    Return all the words in a list, in order. Note that if wordlist is very
    large you might want to use "each_word" instead to avoid slurping all
    words into memory.

HOMEPAGE
    Please visit the project's homepage at
    <https://metacpan.org/release/WordList>.

SOURCE
    Source repository is at <https://github.com/perlancar/perl-WordList>.

BUGS
    Please report any bugs or feature requests on the bugtracker website
    <https://rt.cpan.org/Public/Dist/Display.html?Name=WordList>

    When submitting a bug or request, please include a test-file or a patch
    to an existing test-file that illustrates the bug or desired feature.

SEE ALSO
    "WordList::Role::*" modules.

    Other "WordList::*" modules.

AUTHOR
    perlancar <perlancar@cpan.org>

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE
    This software is copyright (c) 2018, 2017, 2016 by perlancar@cpan.org.

    This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under
    the same terms as the Perl 5 programming language system itself.

