The proposal

This week, I have read the Arabic morphology book Nzhh Al-trf. More I read more understand the richness of Arabic morphology. I did not complete the reading yet but I categorized Arabic morphology in term of word pattern into 35 pattern. However, my aim is to simplify this morphology using tree and hierarchy diagram base on root word.

Then, I focused on the proposal. I send my second version of my proposal to my supervisor and I had a short discussion with him and we agreed on some points.

Today, I will submit my proposal to faculty with registration form. However, I will be more busy this week with some registration process before I fly away for two weeks.

A great journey starts with a single step.

At midnight, I were very exciting to test a string comparison in Arabic language using arrays and string function in PHP regarding my thesis Al Farāhídi Arabic spell checker engine.

Suddenly, I stop due to text editor issue. My current text editor – UltraEdit 8.00a - not supports Arabic characters. Event thought, I have changed the format to UTF-8 encode. I can’t write my testing scripts.

The quick solution is to download a new text editor. My search result return so many. I did try some links. What I have tried so far not prefect yet.

I asked consultation from my friend at Middle East Jeddah. He suggested using PHP expert editor. I laughed because it was my advice to him before during our final year project for bachelor degree.

I downloaded the PHP expert editor demo version and it supports Arabic character. On other hand, I still not satisfied to use this editor for my research because the demo version is only for 30 days and my research will go more than that.

Then, I download dzSoft PHP editor dome version also. The same issue, 30 days only.

The commercial software is not avoidable such as Dreamweaver and FrontPage. Then, I started to search for open source PHP editor.

After a few attempts on open source, I found my editor named notepad ++. This notepad is good and only about 2.7MB. This editor has more features and plug-in that I will mention it later.

Right now can go to sleep!!

About this blog.

This blog is created in June 21, 2007. The main objectives are to share, to document and to get feedback on my master degree thesis titled (Al Farāhídi Arabic Spell Checker for web).

This thesis is supervised by Mohd Hairul Nizam a lecturer at Department of Software Engineering University Malaya located in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia. The thesis is earned 18 credit hours of total 36 credit hours in this program.

The thesis will go though the complexity of Arabic morphology and define the algorithms to solve issues on Arabic spell checker from technical view. The Arabic morphology is different from other languages and current spell check engine may not suite the uniqueness of this language.

Upon forming of the algorithms, Al Farāhídi Arabic spell checker engine will be written and released to experiment the implementation of the concept and algorithms.

Al Farāhídi -name of project- comes from the famous linguistic scholar named Khalíl ibn Ahmad Al Farāhídi.

This topic attracts me in many ways; first the Arabic language is the language of Quran and it been used in more than 40 countries. The second reason is I love Arabic language since my childhood. I use to write poem, stories, novel and articles. I won the first price in Arabic public speaking; I won second price in best article completion and my articles has been published in some newspaper in Middle East and Malaysia.

This blog is open for all to share, to comment and to exchange the experience in the Arabic spell checker projects.

Mahdi Adam