To use this system, ispell-autobuildhash expects a $dict.compat file in /var/lib/ispell ($dict stands for
the hash or affix file basename) containing ispell major or compatibility version for last successful
build or "0" or en empty file if hash is to be rebuild, as is for dictionary installation and upgrades.
When upgrading ispell, script will check if version in $dict.compat is different from ispell.compat and
rebuild if so, updating $dict.compat with the new value. The particular way things are done depends on
whether your dict has a single source or a multiple source like ipolish has.
The most common case is having a single source. In this case you must put the $dict.aff file at
/usr/lib/ispell/$dict.aff as usual and the munched wordlist compressed with gzip at
/usr/share/ispell/$dict.mwl.gz.
This script supports the way ipolish allows selection of subdictionaries to be put in the hash file. It
will detect the presence of the main language .desc file and call update-ipolish-hash as appropriate.
Although this script looks for the existence of a update-ispell-hash script with supposedly similar
functionality to update-ipolish-hash, this latter does not really exists, although it might be added at
some time to ispell or to the dictionaries-common system, if enough demand is found.
If your package provides more than one ispell dictionary you will need to do the steps above for each
dictionary.
Dictionaries-common scripts will call internally this script and create a hash file at
/var/lib/ispell/$dict.hash. You must set a symlink to that file from /usr/lib/ispell/$dict.hash.
Ispell dictionary packages using this script must make sure that $dict.compat is reset on every new
install/upgrade, so hash is rebuilt. They must also make sure that $dict.compat and
/var/lib/ispell/$dict.hash are removed on package removal
As of version 1.10, installdeb-ispell script will understand 'auto-compat' field in $dict.info-ispell
file to help with this by adding needed debhelper snippets. Put in that entry the base name(s) of your
compat file(s) and check resulting maintainer scripts after build.
Note that you are no longer suggested to ship empty files at /var/lib/ispell/$dict.compat and
/var/lib/ispell/$dict.hash to help with reset/removal of those files, but explicitly create/update them
on install and explicitly remove them on removal.
ispell maintainer should also call this script from package postinst. When comparing versions it will
get the ispell version from file /usr/share/ispell/ispell.compat, or if it does not exists, from the
upstream version as given in the first line of 'ispell-vv output.