NAME

SYNOPSIS

  use Text::MeCab;
  my $mecab = Text::MeCab->new({
    rcfile             => $rcfile,
    dicdir             => $dicdir,
    userdic            => $userdic,
    lattice_level      => $lattice_level,
    all_morphs         => $all_morphs,
    output_format_type => $output_format_type,
    partial            => $partial,
    node_format        => $node_format,
    unk_format         => $unk_format,
    bos_format         => $bos_format,
    eos_format         => $eos_format,
    input_buffer_size  => $input_buffer_size,
    allocate_sentence  => $allocate_sentence,
    nbest              => $nbest,
    theta              => $theta,
  });

  for (my $node = $mecab->parse($text); $node; $node = $node->next) {
     # See perdoc for Text::MeCab::Node for list of methods
     print $node->surface, "\n";
  }

  # use constants
  use Text::MeCab qw(:all);
  use Text::MeCab qw(MECAB_NOR_NODE);

  # check what mecab version we compiled against?
  print "Compiled with ", &Text::MeCab::MECAB_VERSION, "\n";

DESCRIPTION

So Text::MeCab gives you a more natural, Perl-ish way to access libmecab!

WARNING: Version 0.20000 has only been tested against libmecab 0.96.

Text::MeCab AND FORMATS

  my $mecab = Text::MeCab->new({
    output_format_type => "user",
    node_format => "%m %pn"
  });

  for(my $node = $mecab->parse($text); $node; $node = $node->next) {
    print $node->format($mecab);
  }

Note that you also need to set the output_format_type parameter as well.

Text::MeCab AND SCOPING

libmecab's default behavior is such that when you analyze a text and get a node back, that node is tied to the mecab "tagger" object that performed the analysis. Therefore, when that tagger is destroyed via mecab_destroy(), all nodes that are associated to it are freed as well.

Text::MeCab defaults to the same behavior, so the following won't work:

  sub get_mecab_node {
     my $mecab = Text::MeCab->new;
     my $node  = $mecab->parse($_[0]);
     return $node;
  }

  my $node = get_mecab_node($text);

By the time get_mecab_node() returns, the Text::MeCab object is DESTROY'ed, and so is $node (actually, the object exists, but it will complain when you try to access the node's internals, because the C struct that was there has already been freed).

In such cases, use the dclone() method. This will copy the *entire* node structure and create a new Text::MeCab::Node::Cloned instance.

  sub get_mecab_node {
     my $mecab = Text::MeCab->new;
     my $node  = $mecab->parse($_[0]);
     return $node->dclone();
  }

The returned Text::MeCab::Node::Cloned object is exactly the same as Text::MeCab::Node object on the surface. It just uses a different but very similar C struct underneath. It is blessed into a different namespace only because we need to use a different memory management strategy.

Do be aware of the memory issue. You WILL use up twice as much memory.

Also please note that if you try the first example, accessing the node *WILL* result in a segfault. This is *NOT* a bug: it's a feature :) While it is possible to control the memory management such that accessing a field in a node that has already expired results in a legal croak(), we do not go to the length to ensure this, because it will result in a performance penalty.

Just remember that unless you dclone() a node, then you are NOT allowed to access it when the original tagger goes out scope:

   {
       my $mecab = Text::MeCab->new;
       $node = $mecab->parse(...);
   }

   $node->surface; # segfault!!!!

Always remember to dclone() before doing this!

PERFORMANCE

  daisuke@beefcake Text-MeCab$ perl tools/benchmark.pl 
               Rate      mecab text_mecab
  mecab      5.53/s         --       -63%
  text_mecab 14.9/s       170%         --

METHODS

  my $encoding = Text::MeCab::ENCODING

SEE ALSO

LICENSE

See http://www.perl.com/perl/misc/Artistic.html

AUTHOR