Weak words are words that are confusing for readers and should be avoided if possible. This tool provides a case insensitive whole word search for this purpose, optionally writing the results back in the ReqIF file.

Analyze weak words

Start ReqEdit and open any ReqIF file. Select the specification document that needs to be analyzed. Select Add-ons > Weak Word Analysis.

Language selector – displays the configured dictionaries from the ReqEdit.exe.config file

Write status – update a specific enumeration attribute if there is or not a match in the dictionary

NOTE: Write status for multi value enums will add the selected value, existing values will not be removed. This can be useful for status fields that are used for other markings as well.

Write match log – update an XHTML attribute with the analysis result, optionally overwriting the contents in the selected attribute

Log “no match” – write in the attribute when no match is found

Analysis progress and log is displayed in real-time. After completion the log output can be saved as a file with [Save log to file] button

Analysis result in ReqIF

When Write match log is enabled, the ReqIF file will be updated with the current results of the analysis.

Expert knowledge

Dictionary

Dictionary file/s must be created in the ReqEdit/Dictionary folder and has to follow the following format:
<Lowercase word><TAB><hint>

should   Strong Weakword; should be avoided, please choose another wording. 
about    Strong Weakword; should be avoided, please choose another wording.

Only one word per row.

NOTE: If the hint is not present the analysis still works but the report will be empty for it.

Dictionary config

Edit ReqEdit.exe.config and set the WeakWordList to use the dictionary files

<setting name="WeakWordList" serializeAs="String">
      <value>Deutsch,weakword_list_de.txt;English,weakword_list_en.txt</value>
</setting>

The dictionary files has to be added in the following format:
<Language selector label>,<dictionary file name in Dictionary folder>;

There must be at least one dictionary to use the tool. The dictionary should be saved in a text file with UTF-8 encoding.

Only Main Column is used for analysis other attributes are not processed.

Dictionary contents is filtered and only unique word+hint pairs are used.

The tool is searching only for whole words in the Main Column contents.

The search is case insensitive regex search.

All text is converted to lowercase internally and matched with the lowercase weak words.

Weak word	Text	Result
go	I will GO TO THE office then go home	2 Found
go	John goes to the office	Not found

Status updates

Single value enumeration attributes will have the value from the configuration.

Multi value enumeration attributes will receive the configured values, but the previous values will not be removed from it.

Notices and limitations

If the weak word add-on menu is not active it can have several reasons:

• You do not have the necessary license
• There are no ReqIF files opened
• ReqEdit.exe.config is not configured

The tool was tested in UTF-8 character encoding, using other encodings can produce unintended results.