genbrk - Linux

Overview

genbrk is a command-line utility designed to generate breakpoints for character and word boundaries in Unicode text. It assists with tasks that require an understanding of where characters, words, and other text elements begin and end.

Syntax

genbrk [options] [text]

Options:

  • **-c, –charset=**CHARSET: Specify the Unicode character set to use (e.g., "UTF-8").
  • **-l, –language=**LANGUAGE: Set the language for word boundary rules (e.g., "en-US").
  • **-t, –type=**TYPE: Specify the break type (options: character or word).
  • **-C, –context=**CONTEXT: Include context characters in the output.
  • -d, –debug: Enable debug mode for advanced troubleshooting.
  • -h, –help: Display this help message.
  • -v, –version: Display the version number and exit.

Examples

Generate character breakpoints for Unicode text:

genbrk -t character "Hello, world!"

Output:

boundary of 0 at offset 0
boundary of 1 at offset 1
boundary of 1 at offset 2
boundary of 1 at offset 3
boundary of 1 at offset 4
boundary of 1 at offset 5
boundary of 1 at offset 6
boundary of 0 at offset 7

Break words in a sentence:

genbrk -t word -l en-US "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog."

Output:

boundary of 2 at offset 0
boundary of 4 at offset 3
boundary of 4 at offset 8
boundary of 3 at offset 13
boundary of 4 at offset 18
boundary of 5 at offset 23
boundary of 2 at offset 29
boundary of 3 at offset 32

Common Issues

Mismatched Character Sets: Ensure that the character set specified with -c matches the actual encoding of your input text.

Unsupported Languages: Not all languages have defined word boundary rules. Check the list of supported languages by running genbrk -l.

Integration

Piping to Other Commands:

Genbrk can be piped to other commands for further processing, e.g.:

genbrk -t word | sort | uniq -c | sort -n

Writing Custom Break Functions:

Genbrk’s library can be used to create custom break functions in other programs. Refer to the genbrk library documentation for details.

Related Commands

  • iconv: Convert text between different character sets.
  • uniq: Find and count unique lines in a text file.
  • grep: Search for patterns in text files.