<sect1 id="unaccent">
 <title>unaccent</title>

 <indexterm zone="unaccent">
  <primary>unaccent</primary>
 </indexterm>

 <para>
  <filename>unaccent</> removes accents (diacritic signs) from a lexeme.
  It's a filtering dictionary, that means its output is 
  always passed to the next dictionary (if any), contrary to the standard 
  behavior. Currently, it supports most important accents from european 
  languages. 
 </para>

 <para>
  Limitation: Current implementation of <filename>unaccent</> 
  dictionary cannot be used as a normalizing dictionary for 
  <filename>thesaurus</filename> dictionary.
 </para>
 
 <sect2>
  <title>Configuration</title>

  <para>
   A <literal>unaccent</> dictionary accepts the following options:
  </para>
  <itemizedlist>
   <listitem>
    <para>
     <literal>RULES</> is the base name of the file containing the list of
     translation rules.  This file must be stored in
     <filename>$SHAREDIR/tsearch_data/</> (where <literal>$SHAREDIR</> means
     the <productname>PostgreSQL</> installation's shared-data directory).
     Its name must end in <literal>.rules</> (which is not to be included in
     the <literal>RULES</> parameter).
    </para>
   </listitem>
  </itemizedlist>
  <para>
   The rules file has the following format:
  </para>
  <itemizedlist>
   <listitem>
    <para>
     Each line represents pair: character_with_accent  character_without_accent
<programlisting>
&Agrave;        A
&Aacute;        A
&Acirc;         A
&Atilde;        A
&Auml;          A
&Aring;         A
&AElig;         A
</programlisting>
    </para>
   </listitem>
  </itemizedlist>

  <para>
   Look at <filename>unaccent.rules</>, which is installed in
   <filename>$SHAREDIR/tsearch_data/</>, for an example.
  </para>
 </sect2>

 <sect2>
  <title>Usage</title>

  <para>
   Running the installation script creates a text search template
   <literal>unaccent</> and a dictionary <literal>unaccent</>
   based on it, with default parameters.  You can alter the
   parameters, for example

<programlisting>
=# ALTER TEXT SEARCH DICTIONARY unaccent (RULES='my_rules');
</programlisting>

   or create new dictionaries based on the template.
  </para>

  <para>
   To test the dictionary, you can try

<programlisting>
=# select ts_lexize('unaccent','Hôtel');
 ts_lexize 
-----------
 {Hotel}
(1 row)
</programlisting>
  </para>
  
  <para>
  Filtering dictionary are useful for correct work of 
  <function>ts_headline</function> function.
<programlisting>
=# CREATE TEXT SEARCH CONFIGURATION fr ( COPY = french );
=# ALTER TEXT SEARCH CONFIGURATION fr
        ALTER MAPPING FOR hword, hword_part, word
        WITH unaccent, french_stem;
=# select to_tsvector('fr','Hôtels de la Mer');
    to_tsvector    
-------------------
 'hotel':1 'mer':4
(1 row)

=# select to_tsvector('fr','Hôtel de la Mer') @@ to_tsquery('fr','Hotels');
 ?column? 
----------
 t
(1 row)
=# select ts_headline('fr','Hôtel de la Mer',to_tsquery('fr','Hotels'));
      ts_headline       
------------------------
  &lt;b&gt;Hôtel&lt;/b&gt;de la Mer
(1 row)

</programlisting>
  </para>
 </sect2>

 <sect2>
 <title>Function</title>

 <para>
  <function>unaccent</> function removes accents (diacritic signs) from
  argument string. Basically, it's a wrapper around 
  <filename>unaccent</> dictionary.
 </para>

 <indexterm>
  <primary>unaccent</primary>
 </indexterm>

<synopsis>
unaccent(<optional><replaceable class="PARAMETER">dictionary</replaceable>, </optional> <replaceable class="PARAMETER">string</replaceable>)
returns <type>text</type>
</synopsis>

 <para>
<programlisting>
SELECT unaccent('unaccent', 'Hôtel');
SELECT unaccent('Hôtel');
</programlisting>
 </para>
 </sect2>

</sect1>
