Registry / serialization / pyspellchecker

pyspellchecker

library0.9.0pypypi✓ verified 24d ago

pyspellchecker is a pure Python spell checker based on Peter Norvig's blog post, utilizing a Levenshtein Distance algorithm to find permutations and compare them to a word frequency list. It supports multiple languages including English, Spanish, German, French, Portuguese, Arabic, and Basque. The current version is 0.9.0, and it is actively maintained with updates to support newer Python versions.

serialization data

pip install pyspellchecker

github ↗package ↗docs ↗

INSTALL

IMPORT

SIG · PYSPELLCHECKER

pyspellchecker

serializationpythonv0.9.0

Install

1.6s avg

Import

37ms

Disk

23MB

Pass rate

10/ 10

Env Coverage10 / 10

glibc

3.9–3.13

musl

3.9–3.13

Install & Compatibility

Where this runs

tested against v0.9.0 · pip install

no network on importno background threads

Install × environment matrix

Each cell = how many times install + import succeeded across repeated harness runs. Partial = flaky.
glibc = Debian/Ubuntu slim · musl = Alpine Linux

musl

py 3.10–3.95 runs

installs and imports cleanly · install 0.0s · import 0.040s · 24.9MB

glibc

py 3.10–3.95 runs

installs and imports cleanly · install 1.6s · import 0.034s · 25MB

23MB installed

● package 23MB

Code

Verified usage

Verified import paths — ran on the pinned version, not inferred.

SpellChecker

✓ from spellchecker import SpellChecker

✗ from pyspellchecker import SpellChecker

While the PyPI package is 'pyspellchecker', the primary class is imported directly from the 'spellchecker' module.

Initialize SpellChecker, identify unknown words, and get corrections or candidate spellings.

from spellchecker import SpellChecker spell = SpellChecker() mispelled_words = spell.unknown(['something', 'is', 'hapenning', 'here']) for word in mispelled_words: print(f"Correction for '{word}': {spell.correction(word)}") print(f"Candidates for '{word}': {spell.candidates(word)}")

Debug

Known issues

breakingVersion 0.9.0 removed support for Python 3.8 and 3.9. Users on these Python versions should use an older pyspellchecker version (e.g., <=0.8.x).

fix

Upgrade Python to >=3.10 or pin `pyspellchecker` to a compatible version (e.g., `pyspellchecker<0.9.0`).

affects: >=0.9.0

breakingAs of version 0.9.0, a `ValueError` is raised if `language` is used simultaneously with `case_sensitive=True` or `local_dictionary` in the `SpellChecker` constructor, as these options are mutually exclusive.

fix

Ensure that `language` is not set when `case_sensitive=True` or `local_dictionary` is provided.

affects: >=0.9.0

gotchaFor longer words or performance-critical applications, it is highly recommended to set the `distance` parameter to 1 (default is 2) during `SpellChecker` initialization or afterwards. A higher distance increases computation time significantly.

fix

Initialize `SpellChecker(distance=1)` or set `spell.distance = 1` after instantiation.

affects: All versions

gotchaSince version 0.7.0, `spell.correction()` and `spell.candidates()` will return `None` if no valid corrections or candidates are found for a given word. Previously, they might have returned the original word or an empty set.

fix

Update code to explicitly check for `None` return values from `correction()` and `candidates()` to avoid unexpected `TypeError` or `AttributeError`.

affects: >=0.7.0

gotchapyspellchecker works by comparing permutations to a word frequency list and does not inherently understand word context. This means it may suggest corrections that are grammatically or contextually incorrect in a sentence (e.g., correcting 'their' to 'there').

fix

Consider integrating with a contextual spell checker or grammar checker for applications requiring semantic understanding, or build a highly specific custom dictionary for your domain.

affects: All versions

Errors

Common errors & fixes

ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'spellchecker'

The `pyspellchecker` library, which provides the `spellchecker` module for importing `SpellChecker`, has not been installed.

fix

pip install pyspellchecker

AttributeError: 'list' object has no attribute 'lower'

The `correction()` method expects a single string as input, but a list of strings was provided instead.

fix

corrected_words = [spell.correction(word) for word in list_of_words]

KeyError: 'xx' (where 'xx' is an unsupported language code)

The `SpellChecker` constructor was initialized with a language code ('xx') that is not supported by the library.

fix

spell = SpellChecker(language='en') # Replace 'en' with a supported language like 'es', 'de', 'fr', 'pt', 'ar', 'eu'

ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'pyspellchecker'

The user is trying to import `pyspellchecker` as a top-level module, but the main `SpellChecker` class is exposed through the `spellchecker` module. This can also happen if a different `spellchecker` package was installed.

fix

from spellchecker import SpellChecker

Upgrade

Version history

0.9.0latest on PyPI · released Mar 7, 2026

Audit

Dependencies

pythonrequiredRequires Python 3.10 or higher.

Agent activity

5 hits · last 30 days

node

Resources

githubhttps://github.com/barrust/pyspellchecker ↗

packagehttps://pypi.org/project/pyspellchecker/ ↗

docshttps://pyspellchecker.readthedocs.io/ ↗