What follows is a very dry specification of the requirements of a Twaddle dictionary file.
The header section contains definintions of the dictionary name and the forms it offers.
The name is defined by a line beginning #name , followed by the name e.g.:
#name noun
The name may not contain any spaces.
The forms are defined by a line beginning #forms , followed by a
space-separated list of the forms available from the dictionary, e.g.
#forms singular plural
The form names may not contain spaces
For backwards compatibility with dictionary files written for
Rant v3, the #forms line may
also be written as #subs, with the same syntax. This is supported but
not recommended.
Definition lines begin with a greater than symbol and a space, followed by a slash-separated list of the forms for that definition:
> parachute/parachutes
The space is mandatory. The line may begin with the > or with any amount of
whitespace, which will be ignored.
Each entry must contain a definition for each form.
Definitions may be (but are not required to be) sorted into classes.
A class applies to a region in a dictionary file. It is started with the
directive #class add <classname> and ended with the directive
#class remove <classname>. Any definitions between the two directives will
be considered a part of the defined class.
Classes may be opened and closed multiple times within a dictionary file, and may overlap with each other in whole or in part.