Knowledge Discovery 25.3
Knowledge Discovery Expert

# Spelling Correction

The Content component can perform automatic spelling correction to terms that it believes were typed incorrectly. It uses intuitive rules to determine the most likely intended term, working from the existing documents in the index. It does not need any dictionary files.

## Improve Spelling Correction

You can specify certain misspellings that you know must correct to specific words, or to specify that Content must never correct a particular word.

When Content stops, it stores any corrections that it has made in a human-readable file. This file allows it to rapidly perform the same correction at a later stage, and allows you to add further corrections.

For example, consider the following query:

    action=Query&Text=san+fransisco&SpellCheck=True

For this query, the server offers the obvious correction, and also shows the full query Text complete with correction. After you stop Content temporarily (using the `Stop` action, or by stopping the service), the server creates a file in the `main` subdirectory of the Content component, called `prx.db`, with the following contents:

Copy

    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
    <PROXIMALS>
    <PROXIMAL ORIG="FRANSISCO" CORRECT="Francisco" />
    </PROXIMALS>

You can add any further corrections to this file, and amend any existing ones. Then restart the server.

NOTE: Ensure that the modified file is still valid XML, or Content cannot read your changes.

The usual practice is to insert a list of common misspellings into this file to aid the process.

To specify a word that must not be corrected in query text, simply add the term to the `prx.db` file without the `CORRECT` attribute. For example:

    <PROXIMAL ORIG="TELEFONE" />

## Configuration Parameters

There are several configuration parameters that affect the spelling correction operation, all in the `[Server]` section.

- `SpellCheckIncorrectMaxDocOccs` (default=0)

  The maximum number of documents in Content in which a term can occur before Content treats it as a correct term and does not attempt to find a spelling correction for it.

- `SpellCheckCorrectMinDocOccs` (default=5)

  The minimum number of documents in Content in which a term can occur and still appear as a spelling correction for another term.

- `SpellCheckMaxCheckTerms` (default=0)

  The maximum number of terms that a query can contain and still have spelling corrections suggested for the terms. A value of `0` means that there is no limit.

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Version 25.3 | Last updated July 2025

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Product: Knowledge Discovery 25.3

Topic Title: Spelling Correction