SDCV(1) General Commands Manual SDCV(1)

sdcv - console version of StarDict program

sdcv [ options ] [list of words]

sdcv is a simple, cross-platform text-based utility for working with dictionaries in StarDict format. Each word from "list of words" may be a string with a leading '/' for using a Fuzzy search algorithm, with a leading '|' for using full-text search, and the string may contain '?' and '*' for regexp search. It works in interactive and non-interactive mode. To exit from interactive mode press Ctrl+D. In interactive mode, if sdcv was compiled with readline library support, you can use the UP and DOWN keys to cycle through history.

Display help message and exit
Display version and exit
Display list of available dictionaries and exit
For search use only dictionary with this bookname
For use in scripts
For use in scripts: only use the dictionaries in data-dir, do not search in user and system directories
Do not fuzzy-search for similar words, only return exact matches
Print the results of list-dicts and searches as json, not as plain text. For use in automatically processing the results of a dictionary lookup.
Force sdcv to not convert to locale charset, output in utf8
Force sdcv to not convert from locale charset, assume that input is in utf8
Use this directory as the path to the stardict data directory. This means that sdcv searches for dictionaries in data-dir/dic directory.
Use ANSI escape codes for colorizing sdcv output (does not work with json output).

/usr/share/stardict/dic
$(XDG_DATA_HOME)/stardict/dic

Place where sdcv expects to find dictionaries. Instead of /usr/share/stardict/dic you can use any directory you want, just set the STARDICT_DATA_DIR environment variable. For example, if you have dictionaries in /mnt/data/stardict-dicts/dic, set STARDICT_DATA_DIR to /mnt/data/stardict-dicts.

$(XDG_DATA_HOME)/sdcv_history

This file includes the last $(SDCV_HISTSIZE) words, which you sought with sdcv. SDCV uses this file only if it was compiled with readline library support.

$(XDG_CONFIG_HOME)/sdcv_ordering

This is a text file containing one dictionary bookname per line. It specifies in which order the results of a search should be shown.

Environment Variables Used By sdcv:

If set, sdcv uses this variable as the data directory, this means that sdcv searches dictionaries in $STARDICT_DATA_DIR/dic
If set, sdcv writes in $(XDG_DATA_HOME)/sdcv_history (or $(SDCV_HISTFILE)) the last $(SDCV_HISTSIZE) words, which you look up using sdcv. If it is not set, then the last 2000 words are saved in $(XDG_DATA_HOME)/sdcv_history.
If set, sdcv writes it's history to $(SDCV_HISTFILE). If it is not set, then the default $(XDG_DATA_HOME)/sdcv_history path will be used.
If SDCV_PAGER is set, its value is used as the name of the program to use to display the dictionary article.

Email bug reports to dushistov at mail dot ru. Be sure to include the word "sdcv" somewhere in the "Subject:" field.

Evgeniy A. Dushistov, Hu Zheng

stardict(1), http://sdcv.sourceforge.net/, http://stardict.sourceforge.net

2006-04-24 sdcv-0.4.2