Creating a User Equivalence File By Hand

The User Equivalence File is read by Metamorph as an overlay to the Main Equivalence File. The search looks for matching root entries first in the User Equivalence File, and then in the Main Equivalence File. The information found in both places is combined, following certain rules.

When editing equivalences using the BACKREF program as shown, the changes you make are written to the named User Equivalence File. It is also possible to hand edit a User Equivalence File if you understand the syntax which is used when writing directly to it.

In order to precisely deal with issues such as precedence, substitution, removal, assignment, back referencing, and see references, a strict format must be adhered to. Any erroneous characters included in the User Equivalence File could be misinterpreted, causing unseen difficulties. Therefore, one must take care to ensure the User Equivalence file is flat ASCII.

If you want to create a User Equivalence file independent of the backref -e feature, follow these steps:

1. Using an ASCII only editor, open a file called "eqvsusr.lst". If you already have a list of words and equivalences you want to add in a flat ASCII file, you can edit the entries into the prescribed format. Otherwise, simply begin entering root words with their equivalences as outlined in the following sections.

2. After creating the above User Equivalence File, it must still be indexed by the "backref" program supplied with your Texis package. Backref takes an ASCII filename as the first argument, and creates a file of the name given in the second argument. For example, use this command on your ASCII User Equivalence File:

        backref eqvsusr.lst eqvsusr

   Where "eqvsusr.lst" is the ASCII file containing your User Equivalence entries, and "eqvsusr" is the file ready for use by the Metamorph search engine.

3. If you have not otherwise named a special User Equiv File in some managing program such as a vortex script, the indexed User Equivalence File must be called "eqvsusr", and must be located in the "morph3" directory, in order for it to be used by a Metamorph search.