# Ruby-wordnet: traverse

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-wordnet-traverse/86213>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [February 20, 2007, 6:10pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-wordnet-traverse/86213 "2007-02-20T18:10:27Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Paul\_Nulty](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/p/77aa72/32.png) [@Paul\_Nulty](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Paul_Nulty)\
**Post date:** [February 20, 2007, 6:10pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-wordnet-traverse/86213/1 "2007-02-20T18:10:27Z")

</div>

Hello,

is anybody familiar with the Ruby-Wordnet module? If so, do you have  
any idea about this error?

/usr/local/lib/ruby/site\_ruby/1.8/wordnet/synset.rb:104:in  
`initialize': undefined method`index’ for nil:NilClass  
(NoMethodError)  
from /usr/local/lib/ruby/site\_ruby/1.8/wordnet/synset.rb:73:in  
`parse' from /usr/local/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/wordnet/synset.rb:769:in`pointers’  
from /usr/local/lib/ruby/site\_ruby/1.8/wordnet/synset.rb:768:in  
`pointers' from /usr/local/lib/ruby/1.8/sync.rb:229:in`synchronize’  
from /usr/local/lib/ruby/site\_ruby/1.8/wordnet/synset.rb:767:in  
`pointers' from /usr/local/lib/ruby/1.8/sync.rb:229:in`synchronize’  
from /usr/local/lib/ruby/site\_ruby/1.8/wordnet/synset.rb:766:in  
`pointers' from /usr/local/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/wordnet/synset.rb:810:in`fetchSynsetPointers’  
… 7 levels…  
from /usr/local/lib/ruby/site\_ruby/1.8/wordnet/synset.rb:693:in  
`traverse' from /usr/local/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/wordnet/synset.rb:705:in`traverse’  
from /home/paul/ruby/wntest.rb:56  
from /home/paul/ruby/wntest.rb:45

caused by this code:

```
    k = lex.lookupSynsets("hospital", WordNet::Noun )
    puts k[0].traverse(:hypernyms)

```

problem is that it randomly works for lots of words but not for  
others. it doesn’t work for “hospital” or “vessel” but does for almost  
all other words in my set.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Paul\_Nulty](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/p/77aa72/32.png) [@Paul\_Nulty](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Paul_Nulty)\
**Post date:** [February 20, 2007, 7:45pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-wordnet-traverse/86213/2 "2007-02-20T19:45:37Z")

</div>

Great, thank you!

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Paul\_Nulty](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/p/77aa72/32.png) [@Paul\_Nulty](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Paul_Nulty)\
**Post date:** [February 20, 2007, 7:29pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-wordnet-traverse/86213/3 "2007-02-20T19:29:36Z")

</div>

On Feb 20, 2007, at 9:10 AM, Paul Nulty wrote:

> is anybody familiar with the Ruby-Wordnet module? If so, do you have  
> any idea about this error?

I am familiar with it, and this is a bug in the 0.02 release:

[dev(E)iate](http://deveiate.org/projects/Ruby-WordNet/ticket/3)

It has been fixed in the SVN version and the 20061008 snapshot that’s  
posted to:

[dev(E)iate](http://deveiate.org/projects/Ruby-WordNet/)

I have some stuff left to commit before creating a new release, but  
I’ll try to get that done by Friday.

–  
Michael G. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid)  
Rubymage, Architect, Believer  
The FaerieMUD Consortium [http://www.FaerieMUD.org/](http://www.FaerieMUD.org/)  
ruby -e “p 12383406064495388618631689469409153107.to\_s(36).tr(‘z’,’ ')”