ePages 6.10 - DE_EPAGES/Core/API/Plural.pm

Package DE_EPAGES::Core::API::Plural

includes function which can transform a english singular word in to the plural form source http://tess2.uspto.gov/tmdb/dscm/plurals.htm

For most searches, selecting the plurals option will provide the desired
singular and plural forms for your search. Note that the plurals option work
both ways, converting singular search terms to plurals and plural search terms
to the singular form for the actual search. If you have doubts about the
substitutions being performed for your search, turn the plurals option off and
specify the explicit search terms you wish to retrieve.

The DSCM search engine employs an exception table to create the singular and
plural forms of search words. If the word is not in exception table, an S is
appended to the word to form its plural. For example, the plural form of BANANA
is BANANAS.

The exception table provides the substitutions that are used to form the plural
form or multiple plural forms for select words. The bulk of the entries include
a word ending and the list of one or more alternative endings that are
substituted to form the plural forms. For example, the plural forms of words
ending in Y are provided by the following entry.

Y IES YS

The above entry means that for any word ending in Y, two plural forms are
created by substituting IES and YS for Y. The plural forms for LADY are LADYS
and LADIES.

When forming the plural forms for a word, the exception table is searched in
order. Once a word match is found, then the substitutions specified in that word
are performed and searching stops. For example, although BOY ends in Y, the
entry OY precedes Y in the table, so the plural form of BOY is BOYS. The
substitution IES is not performed for the Y in boy, so BOIES is not a plural
form BOY.

An alternative format used in the exception table is for entries beginning with
the equal sign (=), which indicates an exact match of the full word must occur
for the substitution to be performed. An example of such an entry follows.

=OCTOPUS =OCTOPUSES =OCTOPI

The plural forms of OCTOPUS are OCTOPUSES and OCTOPI, but OCTOPUS is not
considered to be a word ending for such substitutions. There are very few uses
of this format in the exception table, so there is little likelihood of
encountering these exceptions during your searches. If you have doubts about the
substitutions being performed for your search, turn the plurals option off and
specify the explicit search terms you wish to retrieve.

If an entry in exception table begins with a plus sign (+) then the DSCM search
engine substitutes for the word following the plus sign with all the alternative
entries included on the line.

Each line represents the various forms of a given word ending. If the end of an
input term matches any of the strings given on a line, then that is expanded to
the beginning part of the input term (less the matched ending), plus each of the
endings given on that exception line.

ORDER COUNTS! These exceptions will be tested for in the order in which they are
defined in this table. Once a matching ending is found, the table lookup stops.

@EXPORT_OK
Singular2Plural

Functions

Singular2Plural

Singular2Plural

Returns the English plural option of a word.

Syntax
$Plural = Singular2Plural($Singular);
Example
$Plural = Singular2Plural('Guy');
Input
$Singular (string)
singular term
$Plural (string)
plural term