Add a --stoplist flag for custom stoplists

lib/main.go

@@ -8,6 +8,19 @@ import (
 	"os"
 )
 
+func stoplist(flag string) *Stoplist {
+	if flag == "" {
+		return &DefaultStoplist
+	} else {
+		var err error
+		stoplist, err := ParseStoplist(flag)
+		if err != nil {
+			log.Fatal("Error reading custom stoplist:", err)
+		}
+		return stoplist
+	}
+}
+
 func main() {
 	bestFirstFlag := flag.Bool("best-first", false, "print best matches first")
 	followSymlinksFlag := flag.Bool("follow-symlinks", false, "included symlinked files in results")
@@ -17,6 +30,7 @@ func main() {
 	omitQueryFlag := flag.Bool("omit-query", false, "don't include the query file itself in search results")
 	queryFlag := flag.String("query", "", "path to the file that results should match")
 	showScoresFlag := flag.Bool("show-scores", false, "print scores next to file paths")
+	stoplistFlag := flag.String("stoplist", "", "path to a file of words to be ignored")
 	verboseFlag := flag.Bool("verbose", false, "include debugging information and errors")
 	flag.Parse()
 
@@ -28,7 +42,7 @@ func main() {
 		NoStoplist:     *noStoplistFlag,
 		OmitQuery:      *omitQueryFlag,
 		ShowScores:     *showScoresFlag,
-		Stoplist:       &DefaultStoplist,
+		Stoplist:       stoplist(*stoplistFlag),
 		Verbose:        *verboseFlag,
 	}
 

lib/stoplist.go

@@ -1,5 +1,11 @@
 package main
 
+import (
+	"bufio"
+	"os"
+	"strings"
+)
+
 type Stoplist map[string]bool
 
 func (stoplist *Stoplist) Include(term string) bool {
@@ -17,6 +23,25 @@ func NewStoplist(terms []string) *Stoplist {
 	return &stoplist
 }
 
+func ParseStoplist(path string) (*Stoplist, error) {
+	file, err := os.Open(path)
+	if err != nil {
+		return nil, err
+	}
+	defer file.Close()
+
+	scanner := bufio.NewScanner(file)
+	scanner.Split(bufio.ScanWords)
+
+	terms := []string{}
+
+	for scanner.Scan() {
+		terms = append(terms, strings.ToLower(scanner.Text()))
+	}
+
+	return NewStoplist(terms), nil
+}
+
 var DefaultStoplist = Stoplist{
 	"'ll":             true,
 	"'ve":             true,

man/docsim.1

@@ -65,9 +65,23 @@ Don't filter out common words, like "the" and "because".
 Don't include the query document itself in the results, even if it's in a
 directory being searched.
 .TP
+.BR \-\-query " " \fIFILE\fR
+Use \fIFILE\fR as the query against which all other files will be compared.
+.TP
 .BR \-\-show\-scores
 Include the cosine similarity between each document and the query in the results.
 .TP
+.BR \-\-stoplist " " \fISTOPLIST\fR
+Provide a custom stoplist to use instead of the default English stoplist.
+\fISTOPLIST\fR should be a text file with one word per line. Those words will be
+excluded from textual analysis.
+.PP
+.RS
+Generally stoplists are filled with common words (like "the" and "because" in
+English, or "char" and "struct" in C) that don't carry significant semantic
+value.
+.RE
+.TP
 .BR \-\-verbose
 Print extra debugging information.
 .LP