# Synonymiser
Use a database to programmatically synonymise words and phrases. 
Developed from work associated with http://txt.1bpm.net/Cicerone/

## Requirements
* Python (Developed with 2.7)
* PostgreSQL
* Peewee for Python

## Installation
The source is provided with no setup.py or other installation and the idea is
that it can be used directly or assimilated into other Python projects 
directly.

* Load the gzipped sql file in the sql directory to your PostgreSQL instance.
* In the synonymiser directory, rename config.dist.py to config.py and edit the
containing values to reflect your PostgreSQL installation.

## Usage

### Standalone
synonymiser.py can be called directly and has a number of command line options.
It can handle a single word or a phrase given as an argument, or take input 
piped to stdin. Some of the following options only make sense for synonymising 
a single word:

* -h , --help : show help
* -o , --offensive : include words marked as offensive in the database (default 
is don't)
* -l LIMIT , --limit LIMIT : limit the number of synonyms returned to LIMIT. 
Only relevant when providing a single word.
* -s SORTING , --sorting SORTING : sort the list of synonyms, available options
are random, alpha and none. Only relevant when providing a single word.


### Imported to Python project
The synonymiser directory can be used as a subpackage in your Python project 
or you can just use the three files config.py, synonymiser.py and db.py 
accordingly. The functions intended to be exposed are:
* synonymise(line, offensives=False)  : synonymise a line of text, replacing
each word with randomly selected synonyms, only selecting words marked as
offensive if offensives is True. Returns a string.
* get_synonyms(word, limit=1, sorting=SORTING.RANDOM, offensives=False)  : get 
synonyms for word, limited to the number specified by limit, where sorting can
be SORTING.RANDOM, SORTING.ALPHA or SORTING.NONE, only selecting words marked
as offensive if offensives is True. Returns a list.