Error Detection, Recovery, and Repair in the Translation of Inorganic Nomenclatures. 3. An Error Handler

The development of a system for the repair of lexical errors detected in the process of recognizing inorganic chemical names is described. Repairs are based on the calculation of similarity between strings, using the model and approximate matching algorithm detailed in the previous article of this series. A hierarchical data structure is proposed for the storage of information generated during the repair process. This structure comprises two hierarchically-related abstract data types, to permit the storage of partial and total repairs generated by the process. The great amount of information generated by the system might recommend its use in applications requiring explanatory subsystems to report on the success of recognition of user-input information. Problems in the repair process arising from inorganic grammar structures are also examined, and solutions are proposed for cases such as that of the delimiters between significant parts of the inorganic substance name.