Re: Find the longest word in the word list file.

[Stephen Berman <stephen.berman@gmx.net>]

On Wed, 11 Aug 2021 07:14:05 +0800 Hongyi Zhao <hongyi.zhao@gmail.com> wrote:

> I have an English word list file that stores words in a
> one-word-per-line format. Now I want to find the longest word in the
> word list file. For example, I can use standard UNIX tools to
> accomplish this with the following simple commands:
>
> $ awk '$0 ~ /^[[:alpha:]]+$/ { print $0, length($0) }'
> american-english-exhaustive | \
> sort -k2n | tail -1
> Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch 58
>
> But in Emacs, what is the elisp implementation for the above task?

Here's another way.  Say e.g. the following is the buffer with your list
of words:

Theory
and
Simulation
of
Materials

First do this:

(setq l
'(Theory
and
Simulation
of
Materials))

Evaluate the preceding sexp, then evaluate the following sexp:

(car (sort l (lambda (a b)
	       (> (length (symbol-name a)) (length (symbol-name b))))))
=>
Simulation

Steve Berman