Network Working Group R. Faith Request for Comments: 2229 U. North Carolina, Chapel Hill Category: Informational B. Martin Miranda Productions October 1997 A Dictionary Server Protocol Status of this Memo This memo provides information for the Internet community. It does not specify an Internet standard of any kind. Distribution of this memo is unlimited. Copyright Notice Copyright (C) The Internet Society (1997). All Rights Reserved. Abstract The Dictionary Server Protocol (DICT) is a TCP transaction based query/response protocol that allows a client to access dictionary definitions from a set of natural language dictionary databases. Table of Contents 1. Introduction ......................................... 2 1.1. Requirements ......................................... 3 2. Protocol Overview .................................... 3 2.1. Link Level ........................................... 3 2.2. Lexical Tokens ....................................... 3 2.3. Commands ............................................. 4 2.4. Responses ............................................ 5 2.4.1. Status Responses ..................................... 5 2.4.2. General Status Responses ............................. 6 2.4.3. Text Responses ....................................... 6 3. Command and Response Details ......................... 7 3.1. Initial Connection ................................... 7 3.2. The DEFINE Command ................................... 9 3.3. The MATCH Command .................................... 10 3.4. A Note on Virtual Databases .......................... 12 3.5. The SHOW Command ..................................... 13 3.5.1. SHOW DB .............................................. 13 3.5.2. SHOW STRAT ........................................... 13 3.5.3. SHOW INFO ............................................ 14 3.5.4. SHOW SERVER .......................................... 14 3.6. The CLIENT Command ................................... 15 Faith & Martin Informational