Radixor/docs/cli-compilation.md

CLI Compilation

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Radixor provides a command-line tool for compiling dictionary files into compact, production-ready binary stemmer tables.

This is the recommended workflow for deployment environments, as it separates:

• dictionary preparation (offline)
• stemming execution (runtime)

Overview

The Compile tool:

1. reads a line-oriented dictionary file
2. converts word–stem pairs into patch commands
3. builds a trie structure
4. applies subtree reduction
5. writes a compressed binary artifact

The output is a .radixor.gz file suitable for fast runtime loading.

Basic usage

java org.egothor.stemmer.Compile \
  --input ./data/stemmer.txt \
  --output ./build/english.radixor.gz \
  --reduction-mode MERGE_SUBTREES_WITH_EQUIVALENT_RANKED_GET_ALL_RESULTS \
  --store-original \
  --overwrite

Required arguments

--input

Path to the source dictionary file.

• must be in the dictionary format
• must be readable
• UTF-8 encoding is expected

--input ./data/stemmer.txt

--output

Path to the output binary file.

• parent directories are created automatically
• output is written as GZip-compressed binary

--output ./build/english.radixor.gz

Optional arguments

--reduction-mode

Controls how aggressively the trie is reduced during compilation.

Available values:

• MERGE_SUBTREES_WITH_EQUIVALENT_RANKED_GET_ALL_RESULTS
• MERGE_SUBTREES_WITH_EQUIVALENT_UNORDERED_GET_ALL_RESULTS
• MERGE_SUBTREES_WITH_EQUIVALENT_DOMINANT_GET_RESULTS

Example:

--reduction-mode MERGE_SUBTREES_WITH_EQUIVALENT_RANKED_GET_ALL_RESULTS

Recommendation

Use:

MERGE_SUBTREES_WITH_EQUIVALENT_RANKED_GET_ALL_RESULTS

This provides:

• safe behavior
• deterministic ordering
• good compression

--store-original

Stores the stem itself as a no-op mapping.

--store-original

Effect:

• ensures that canonical forms are always resolvable
• improves robustness in real-world inputs

Recommended for most use cases.

--overwrite

Allows overwriting an existing output file.

--overwrite

Without this flag:

• compilation fails if the output file already exists

Reduction strategy explained

Reduction merges semantically equivalent subtrees to reduce memory and file size.

Trade-offs:

Mode	Compression	Behavioral fidelity
Ranked	Medium	High
Unordered	High	Medium
Dominant	Highest	Lower (heuristic)

Ranked (recommended)

• preserves full getAll() ordering
• safest and most predictable

Unordered

• ignores ordering differences
• higher compression, but less precise semantics

Dominant

• focuses on the most frequent result
• useful when only get() is relevant
• may lose secondary candidates

Output format

The compiled file:

• is a binary representation of the trie

• uses GZip compression

• is optimized for:

  • fast loading
  • minimal memory footprint

Typical properties:

• small file size
• fast deserialization
• no runtime preprocessing required

Example workflow

1. Prepare dictionary

run running runs ran
connect connected connecting

2. Compile

java org.egothor.stemmer.Compile \
  --input ./data/stemmer.txt \
  --output ./build/english.radixor.gz \
  --reduction-mode MERGE_SUBTREES_WITH_EQUIVALENT_RANKED_GET_ALL_RESULTS \
  --store-original

3. Use in application

FrequencyTrie<String> trie =
    StemmerPatchTrieLoader.loadBinary("english.radixor.gz");

Error handling

The CLI reports:

• missing input file
• invalid arguments
• I/O failures
• parsing errors

Typical exit codes:

• 0 – success
• non-zero – failure

Error details are printed to standard error.

Performance considerations

Compilation

• typically CPU-bound
• depends on dictionary size and reduction mode

Output size

• depends on:

  • dictionary completeness
  • reduction strategy

• can vary significantly between modes

Runtime impact

• compiled tries are optimized for:

  • fast lookup
  • low allocation
  • predictable latency

Best practices

Use offline compilation

• compile dictionaries during build or deployment
• do not compile on application startup

Version your artifacts

• treat .radixor.gz files as versioned assets
• store them alongside application releases

Choose reduction mode deliberately

• use ranked for correctness
• use dominant only if you fully understand the trade-offs

Keep dictionaries clean

• better input → better compiled output
• avoid noise and inconsistencies

Integration tips

• store compiled files under resources/ or a dedicated directory
• load them once and reuse the trie instance
• avoid repeated loading in frequently executed code paths (for example, per-request processing)

Next steps

• Dictionary format
• Programmatic usage
• Quick start

Summary

The Compile CLI is the bridge between:

• human-readable dictionary data
• optimized runtime stemmer tables

It enables a clean separation between:

• data preparation
• runtime execution

and is the preferred way to prepare Radixor for production use.