Detecting whether a word is a part of speech

Question

I have this code snippet. It runs fine, but it does not detect anything as expected.

What am I missing?

            WordCtDoc = TSearchNumberOfTimes.Text.ToString();
            WordCt = 1;
            while (WordCt <= WordCtDoc.Max())
            {
                Globals.ThisAddIn.Application.Selection.MoveRight(WdUnits.wdWord, 1, WdMovementType.wdExtend);
                if (Globals.ThisAddIn.Application.Selection.Text.Equals(Globals.ThisAddIn.Application.SynonymInfo[Globals.ThisAddIn.Application.Selection.Text, WdPartOfSpeech.wdAdjective]))
                {
                    
                    Globals.ThisAddIn.Application.Selection.Font.Color = WdColor.wdColorRed;
                    LBSelectedAdjectives.Items.Add(Globals.ThisAddIn.Application.Selection.Text);
                }

                Globals.ThisAddIn.Application.Selection.MoveRight(WdUnits.wdWord, 1, WdMovementType.wdMove);
                WordCt++;
            }

Answer 1

Looks like there are a few things that might be causing your code to not work as expected...

1. Incorrect use of SynonymInfo The SynonymInfo object in Word's interop API provides synonyms for a given word but does not return a boolean or a direct comparison to check whether a word belongs to a part of speech.

To fix this, check MeaningCount before accessing synonyms. Instead of trying to compare Selection.Text directly to SynonymInfo, you need to check whether SynonymInfo actually contains meanings.

Try the following:

WordCtDoc = TSearchNumberOfTimes.Text.ToString();
WordCt = 1;

while (WordCt <= WordCtDoc.Length) // Fix: Changed to 'Length' instead of Max()
{
    Globals.ThisAddIn.Application.Selection.MoveRight(WdUnits.wdWord, 1, WdMovementType.wdExtend);

    string selectedText = Globals.ThisAddIn.Application.Selection.Text.Trim(); // Ensure no extra spaces
    var synonymInfo = Globals.ThisAddIn.Application.SynonymInfo[selectedText, WdPartOfSpeech.wdAdjective];

    if (synonymInfo.MeaningCount > 0) // Fix: Properly check if the word has meanings
    {
        Globals.ThisAddIn.Application.Selection.Font.Color = WdColor.wdColorRed;
        LBSelectedAdjectives.Items.Add(selectedText);
    }

    Globals.ThisAddIn.Application.Selection.MoveRight(WdUnits.wdWord, 1, WdMovementType.wdMove);
    WordCt++;
}

2. Fixing WordCtDoc.Max() Your original code uses WordCtDoc.Max(), which does not seem to make sense in this context. Since WordCtDoc is a string, calling .Max() will return the highest character value, not the length of the string.

To fix this, use WordCtDoc.Length instead.

3. Handling whitespace in selection Word may include extra spaces or newline characters in Selection.Text, causing mismatches. Use .Trim() when accessing the text.

4. Preventing errors if no synonyms exist If SynonymInfo does not contain any synonyms, directly accessing it without checking MeaningCount first can cause an error. The fix is to check synonymInfo.MeaningCount > 0 before proceeding.

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hth

Marcin