Implement a spell checker.

Topics: Files, loops, functions, arrays

Write a program that repeatedly asks the user to enter a word. After each word is entered, the program tells the user if the word is correctly spelled or not.

Sample run:

Welcome to the spell checker! Please enter a word:

> apple

The word apple is spelled correctly!

Enter another word:

> snake

The word snake is spelled correctly!

Enter another word:

> compooter

WHOA! compooter isn’t a word! Bad human! Learn to spell!

> dinosore

WHOA! dinosore isn’t a word! Bad human! Learn to spell!

To solve this problem: Download the following text file to your program directory. This file is a dictionary listing ALL THE WORDS IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE: largedictionary.txt

This file contains exactly 202,412 words (you may use this number to decide how big to make your array, if you like).

Suggestion #1: Before trying to solve this problem with the actual large dictionary, first create a small dictionary of just a few words (like 10 words or something) and get the program working with that. Then, switch to using the big dictionary and see if it still works. Large examples often introduce additional issues, so always try to get your program working for small examples first.

Suggestion #2: Break the problem down into steps. For example, you might implement the following “pseudo code”:

1) Create a giant array. Read each word in from the dictionary file and store the word in the array.

2) Enter a loop in which you ask the user to enter a word.

a) Check if the word entered is in your giant array of words.

i) If so, congratulate the user.

ii) If not, berate the user for their flawed spelling.

Suggestion #3: At this point you are finding that your program works great for a small dictionary file, but fails when using the big dictionary. The issue is that the array for the big dictionary is so large that it cannot be stored “on the stack”. To alleviate this, change how you declare your array to:

string * bigArray = new string[202412];

This is the “dynamic” method for creating an array and occurs during run-time, and importantly here, uses “heap” memory which can be much larger.