gohanlon.com

I recently decided to play around with WordNet, a lexical database of English. Naturally, I wanted to use Ruby and found the Ruby-WordNet bindings. The install process was more involved than I expected.

Install WordNet

Download and unpack the latest version of WordNet. (I installed WordNet-3.0.tar.gz.) Then, proceed with the usual build steps:

$ cd ~src/WordNet-3.0
$ ./configure
$ make
$ sudo make install

Install Berkeley DB

I used MacPorts, which was nice and simple:

$ sudo port install db46

Install Berkeley DB Ruby Bindings

Download the latest release of BDB via FTP server. (I installed bdb-0.6.2.tar.gz.)

$ cd ~src/bdb-0.6.2

Next, if you are using an Intel-based Mac, use this:

$ env ARCHFLAGS="-arch i386" ruby extconf.rb --with-db-include=/opt/local/include/db46 --with-db-lib=/opt/local/lib/db46

Otherwise, if you’re using a PPC-based Mac:

$ env ARCHFLAGS="-arch ppc" ruby extconf.rb --with-db-include=/opt/local/include/db46 --with-db-lib=/opt/local/lib/db46

For me, not specifying the architecture results in this general error:

Could not create Makefile due to some reason, probably lack of
necessary libraries and/or headers.  Check the mkmf.log file for more
details.  You may need configuration options.
...
extconf.rb:78: libdb not found (RuntimeError)
...

With more detailed error information in ~/src/bdb-0.6.2/mkmf.log:

...
ld: symbol(s) not found for architecture ppc
...

Note: In general, I’ve found that anything that I build using MKMF needs the ARCHFLAGS environment variable. Also, note that some RubyGems use MKMF to build native extensions, so -arch is also required (i.e. sudo env ARCHFLAGS="-arch i386" gem install mysql).

If everything went well you’ll have a Makefile and can finish off the Berkeley DB Ruby bindings installation:

$ make
$ sudo make install

Install Ruby-WordNet

Download the latest version of Ruby-Wordnet (I installed Ruby-WordNet-0.0.4.tar.gz):

$ cd ~src/Ruby-WordNet-0.0.4
$ ruby convertdb.rb /usr/local/WordNet-3.0/dict/
$ ruby test.rb
$ sudo ruby install.rb

I got one failure while running the tests, which I assumed to not be a huge problem.

You should now be able to run the examples:

$ sudo ruby examples/distance.rb pine tree
The hypernym distance between pine and tree is: 3

Note: To avoid having to sudo to run your Ruby scripts that leverage WordNet, you will likely need to correct permissions to allow your user write access to the ruby-wordnet database files. I do not recommend adding your user to the group wheel, which exposes you to security vulnerabilities and/or prevent applications from loading plugins. For example, Safari won’t load plugins (Input Managers) if your user is a member of wheel.

Concluding Thoughts

I have a strong suspicion that the Ruby community would benefit from using MySQL for the WordNet database. There are already some projects that port WordNet to a MySQL database, such as wordnet sql builder. With a reasonable amount of effort the schema could be altered to conform to ActiveRecord conventions, making WordNet much more accessible.