ispell/aspell on Mac 10.7: "Searching for program: No such file or directory, aspell"

ispell/aspell on Mac 10.7: "Searching for program: No such file or directory, aspell"

[Marius Hofert]

Hi,

I'm working with Emacs 23.3 on Mac OS X 10.7.2. I would like to use aspell for spell checking, but I get an error. Here is what I tried so far and the corresponding results:

1) downloaded and installed aspell-0.60.6.1.tar.gz 
2) copied ./scripts/ispell and ./scripts/spell to /usr/local/bin [recommended in README]
3) downloaded and installed aspell6-en-7.1-0.tar.bz2 [English dictionary]
4) tested aspell in the terminal => works
5) downloaded http://www-sop.inria.fr/members/Manuel.Serrano/flyspell/flyspell.html 
6) put it in ~/.emacs.d/flyspell under the name "flyspell.el"
7) put in ~/.emacs:
(add-to-list 'load-path "~/.emacs.d/flyspell")
(autoload 'flyspell-mode "flyspell" "On-the-fly spelling checker." t)
(autoload 'flyspell-delay-command "flyspell" "Delay on command." t) 
(autoload 'tex-mode-flyspell-verify "flyspell" "" t) 
(setq-default ispell-program-name "aspell")

If I open a .tex file and use M-x flyspell-mode, I obtain: "Searching for program: No such file or directory, aspell".
Without the last line in 7), I obtain "Searching for program: No such file or directory, ispell". Both ispell and aspell are working in the terminal, why not in emacs?

The buffer *Messages* says:
...
Applying style hooks... done
Loading /Users/mhofert/.emacs.d/flyspell/flyspell.el (source)...done
Local Ispell dictionary set to nil
Starting new Ispell process [default] ...
apply: Searching for program: No such file or directory, aspell


Cheers,

Marius

Re: ispell/aspell on Mac 10.7: "Searching for program: No such file or directory, aspell"

[Marius Hofert]

Dear Mario,

thanks a lot for your help. 
I also thought that steps 5) to 7) are not necessary, but without manually setting up flyspell.el, I obtained:
Starting new Ispell process [default] ...
Enabling Flyspell mode gave an error

Okay, I removed the flyspell folder (containing flyspell.el) and put in the following in .emacs (as you suggested):
(setq-default ispell-program-name "/usr/local/bin/aspell")
(setq-default ispell-list-command "list")
Without the first command, I get the message "Enabling Flyspell mode gave an error", so even if aspell belongs to PATH it is not found. Hmm...

I also put in the following in .emacs:
(add-hook 'text-mode-hook 'flyspell-mode); enable flyspell mode for text-mode
(mapcar (lambda (mode-hook) (add-hook mode-hook 'flyspell-prog-mode))
         '(c-mode-common-hook R-mode-hook emacs-lisp-mode-hook)) 
The second/third lines are to use flyspell-prog-mode for .c and .R files (and emacs-lisp). However, this does not seem to have an impact when I opened a .c file and put in wrong character sequences in the comments... How does this work?

Cheers,

Marius


On 2011-10-24, at 17:36 , Mario Lassnig wrote:

> On 11-10-24 17:27 , Marius Hofert wrote:
> > Hi,
> 
> Gruezi,
> 
> >
> > I'm working with Emacs 23.3 on Mac OS X 10.7.2. I would like to use aspell for spell
> > checking, but I get an error. Here is what I tried so far and the corresponding results:
> >
> > 1) downloaded and installed aspell-0.60.6.1.tar.gz
> > 2) copied ./scripts/ispell and ./scripts/spell to /usr/local/bin [recommended in README]
> > 3) downloaded and installed aspell6-en-7.1-0.tar.bz2 [English dictionary]
> > 4) tested aspell in the terminal =>  works
> 
> Ok until now...
> 
> > 5) downloaded http://www-sop.inria.fr/members/Manuel.Serrano/flyspell/flyspell.html
> > 6) put it in ~/.emacs.d/flyspell under the name "flyspell.el"
> > 7) put in ~/.emacs:
> > (add-to-list 'load-path "~/.emacs.d/flyspell")
> > (autoload 'flyspell-mode "flyspell" "On-the-fly spelling checker." t)
> > (autoload 'flyspell-delay-command "flyspell" "Delay on command." t)
> > (autoload 'tex-mode-flyspell-verify "flyspell" "" t)
> 
> ... in principle not necessary, as e23.3 comes with flyspell prepackaged ...
> 
> > (setq-default ispell-program-name "aspell")
> 
> ... the trick comes here:
> 
> (setq-default ispell-program-name "/usr/local/bin/aspell")
> (setq-default ispell-list-command "list")
> 
> Ciao,
> Mario
> 
> >
> > If I open a .tex file and use M-x flyspell-mode, I obtain: "Searching for program: No such
> > file or directory, aspell".
> > Without the last line in 7), I obtain "Searching for program: No such file or directory, ispell".
> > Both ispell and aspell are working in the terminal, why not in emacs?
> >
> > The buffer *Messages* says:
> > ...
> > Applying style hooks... done
> > Loading /Users/mhofert/.emacs.d/flyspell/flyspell.el (source)...done
> > Local Ispell dictionary set to nil
> > Starting new Ispell process [default] ...
> > apply: Searching for program: No such file or directory, aspell
> >
> >
> > Cheers,
> >
> > Marius
> 

Re: ispell/aspell on Mac 10.7: "Searching for program: No such file or directory, aspell"

[Marius Hofert]

Okay, just figured out, that aspell did not work in the emacs shell (only in terminal.app). A restart cleared everything, so aspell is now found and I don't even need the two setq-default commands :-)

Cheers,

Marius

On 2011-10-24, at 20:16 , Mario Lassnig wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> On 11-10-24 18:03 , Marius Hofert wrote:
>> Dear Mario,
>> 
>> thanks a lot for your help.
>> I also thought that steps 5) to 7) are not necessary, but without manually setting up flyspell.el, I obtained:
>> Starting new Ispell process [default] ...
>> Enabling Flyspell mode gave an error
> 
> hmmm, i don't even have any load/require/anything in my init.el...
> it just works for me... (this guy here: http://emacsformacosx.com/)
> 
>> Okay, I removed the flyspell folder (containing flyspell.el) and put in the following in .emacs (as you suggested):
>> (setq-default ispell-program-name "/usr/local/bin/aspell")
>> (setq-default ispell-list-command "list")
>> Without the first command, I get the message "Enabling Flyspell mode gave an error", so even if aspell belongs to PATH it is not found. Hmm...
> 
> the osx environment is a bit messed up. it's a huge pita to do this correctly. the easiest way is just to put the full path to aspell in the ispell-program-name.
> 
>> 
>> I also put in the following in .emacs:
>> (add-hook 'text-mode-hook 'flyspell-mode); enable flyspell mode for text-mode
>> (mapcar (lambda (mode-hook) (add-hook mode-hook 'flyspell-prog-mode))
>>          '(c-mode-common-hook R-mode-hook emacs-lisp-mode-hook))
>> The second/third lines are to use flyspell-prog-mode for .c and .R files (and emacs-lisp). However, this does not seem to have an impact when I opened a .c file and put in wrong character sequences in the comments... How does this work?
> 
> i didn't even know that there's a flyspell-prog mode :-)
> i use it for latex only
> 
> cheers,
> mario
> 
>> 
>> Cheers,
>> 
>> Marius
> 
> -- 
> Mario Lassnig
> CERN PH-ADP-DDM 1-R-022
> CH-1211 Geneve 23
> mario.lassnig@cern.ch
> +41 22 76 71268
>