Spelling checker in Python

For any type of text processing or analysis, checking the spelling of the word is one of the basic requirements. This article discusses various ways that you can check the spellings of the words and also can correct the spelling of the respective word.

Using textblob library

First, you need to install the library textblob using pip in command prompt. 

pip install textblob

You can also install this library in Jupyter Notebook as: 

Python3

import sys
!{sys.executable} - m pip install textblob

Program for Spelling checker –

Python3

from textblob import TextBlob

a = "cmputr"           # incorrect spelling
print("original text: "+str(a))

b = TextBlob(a)

# prints the corrected spelling
print("corrected text: "+str(b.correct()))

Output:

original text: cmputr
corrected text: computer

Using pyspellchecker library

You can install this library as below:
Using pip:

pip install pyspellchecker

In Jupyter Notebook:

Python3

import sys
!{sys.executable} - m pip install pyspellchecker

Spelling Checker program using pyspellchecker – 

Python3

from spellchecker import SpellChecker

spell = SpellChecker()

# find those words that may be misspelled
misspelled = spell.unknown(["cmputr", "watr", "study", "wrte"])

for word in misspelled:
    # Get the one `most likely` answer
    print(spell.correction(word))

    # Get a list of `likely` options
    print(spell.candidates(word))

Output:

computer
{'caput', 'caputs', 'compute', 'computor', 'impute', 'computer'}
water
{'water', 'watt', 'warr', 'wart', 'war', 'wath', 'wat'}
write
{'wroe', 'arte', 'wre', 'rte', 'wrote', 'write'}

Using JamSpell

To achieve the best quality while making spelling corrections dictionary-based methods are not enough. You need to consider the word surroundings. JamSpell is a python spell checking library based on a language model. It makes different corrections for a different context.

1) Install swig3

apt-get install swig3.0   # for linux
brew install swig@3       # for mac

2) Install jamspell

pip install jamspell

3) Download a language model for your language

Python3

# Create a corrector
corrector = jamspell.TSpellCorrector()

# Load Language model -
# argument is a downloaded model file path
corrector.LoadLangModel('Downloads/en_model.bin')

# To fix text automatically run FixFragment:
print(corrector.FixFragment('I am the begt spell cherken!'))

# To get a list of possible candidates
# pass a splitted sentence, and a word position
print(corrector.GetCandidates(['i', 'am', 'the', 'begt', 'spell', 'cherken'], 3))

print(corrector.GetCandidates(['i', 'am', 'the', 'begt', 'spell', 'cherken'], 5))

Output:

u'I am the best spell checker!'
(u'best', u'beat', u'belt', u'bet', u'bent')
(u'checker', u'chicken', u'checked', u'wherein', u'coherent', ...)