tilde-projects/Code/irc/defineWord.py

import urllib
from bs4 import BeautifulSoup
import random
 
def define(word):
  defs = []
  url = 'http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/%s' % word
  soup = BeautifulSoup(urllib.urlopen(url).read(), 'html.parser')
  head = soup.find('div', id='headword')
  if head:
    for p in head.find_all('p'):
        defs.append(p.text.encode('ascii', 'ignore'))
  return defs

key = open("/home/krowbar/.secret/key").readline().rstrip()

def defWord(word, short = True):
    defs = []
    url = 'http://www.dictionaryapi.com/api/v1/references/collegiate/xml/%s?key=%s' % (word, key)
    soup = BeautifulSoup(urllib.urlopen(url).read(), 'html5lib')
    entry = soup.find('entry')
    if entry:
        for d in entry.find_all('dt'):
            defs.append(d.text.encode('ascii', 'ignore'))
    if short:
        return ' '.join(defs)
    else:
        return defs