compromise vs natural vs retext
Natural Language Processing Libraries
compromisenaturalretextSimilar Packages:

Natural Language Processing Libraries

Natural Language Processing (NLP) libraries facilitate the interaction between computers and human language, enabling applications to understand, interpret, and generate human language in a valuable way. These libraries provide various functionalities such as text analysis, sentiment analysis, and language parsing, which are essential for developing intelligent applications that require language comprehension. Each of these libraries has unique strengths and use cases, making them suitable for different NLP tasks in web development.

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compromise354,53612,0452.59 MB11812 days agoMIT
natural010,87313.8 MB8010 days agoMIT
retext02,43210.3 kB03 years agoMIT

Feature Comparison: compromise vs natural vs retext

Core Functionality

  • compromise:

    Compromise excels in providing fast and efficient natural language processing for tasks like part-of-speech tagging, entity recognition, and sentence parsing. It is designed for quick text manipulation and can handle a variety of common NLP tasks without extensive configuration.

  • natural:

    Natural offers a comprehensive suite of NLP tools, including tokenization, stemming, classification, and phonetics. It supports various algorithms and provides a modular architecture, allowing developers to choose specific components for their NLP needs, making it versatile for complex applications.

  • retext:

    Retext focuses on processing and analyzing natural language in Markdown and HTML formats. It provides plugins for linting and transforming text, making it particularly useful for content-heavy applications where text quality and structure are paramount.

Performance

  • compromise:

    Compromise is optimized for speed and efficiency, making it suitable for applications that require quick responses. Its lightweight nature allows for rapid text processing without significant resource consumption, which is beneficial for real-time applications.

  • natural:

    Natural's performance can vary depending on the complexity of the NLP tasks being performed. While it provides a rich feature set, some operations may require more computational resources, especially when dealing with large datasets or complex algorithms.

  • retext:

    Retext is designed to handle text transformations efficiently, particularly for Markdown and HTML content. Its performance is generally good, but it may depend on the number of plugins used and the complexity of the text being processed.

Ease of Use

  • compromise:

    Compromise is known for its user-friendly API and straightforward syntax, making it easy for developers to get started with NLP tasks. Its simplicity allows for quick integration into projects without a steep learning curve.

  • natural:

    Natural has a more extensive API and may require a deeper understanding of NLP concepts to fully utilize its capabilities. While it offers powerful tools, the learning curve can be steeper compared to Compromise, especially for beginners.

  • retext:

    Retext provides a clear and modular approach to text processing, but its focus on plugins may require users to familiarize themselves with the ecosystem to leverage its full potential. However, once understood, it offers great flexibility in handling text.

Community and Support

  • compromise:

    Compromise has a growing community and is actively maintained, providing good documentation and examples. This makes it easier for developers to find support and resources when working with the library.

  • natural:

    Natural has a solid user base and community support, with documentation available for various features. However, it may not be as actively maintained as some other libraries, which could affect long-term support.

  • retext:

    Retext benefits from a strong community, especially among those working with Markdown and content management. Its plugin architecture encourages contributions, leading to a rich ecosystem of tools and resources.

Extensibility

  • compromise:

    Compromise is designed to be extensible, allowing developers to create custom plugins and enhance its capabilities. This flexibility is beneficial for projects with specific NLP requirements that go beyond the built-in features.

  • natural:

    Natural's modular architecture allows for extensibility, enabling developers to integrate additional NLP algorithms or customize existing ones. This makes it suitable for projects that require tailored solutions.

  • retext:

    Retext's plugin system encourages extensibility, allowing developers to add custom processing rules and linting checks. This is particularly useful for applications that need to enforce specific content standards or styles.

How to Choose: compromise vs natural vs retext

  • compromise:

    Choose Compromise if you need a lightweight and fast library for simple NLP tasks such as part-of-speech tagging, entity recognition, and basic sentence parsing. It is particularly useful for applications that require quick text manipulation without the overhead of more complex NLP frameworks.

  • natural:

    Choose Natural if you are looking for a comprehensive NLP toolkit that includes a wide range of functionalities such as tokenization, stemming, classification, and phonetics. It is suitable for projects that require more advanced text processing capabilities and offers a modular approach for building NLP applications.

  • retext:

    Choose Retext if you want a powerful library focused on natural language processing with a strong emphasis on Markdown and HTML content. It is ideal for applications that require text analysis, linting, and transformations, especially in content management systems or static site generators.

README for compromise

compromise
modest natural language processing
npm install compromise
don't you find it strange,
    how easy text is to make,

     ᔐᖜ   and how hard it is to actually parse and use?

compromise tries its best to turn text into data.
it makes limited and sensible decisions.
it's not as smart as you'd think.
import nlp from 'compromise'

let doc = nlp('she sells seashells by the seashore.')
doc.verbs().toPastTense()
doc.text()
// 'she sold seashells by the seashore.'
don't be fancy, at all:
if (doc.has('simon says #Verb')) {
  return true
}
grab parts of the text:
let doc = nlp(entireNovel)
doc.match('the #Adjective of times').text()
// "the blurst of times?"

and get data:

import plg from 'compromise-speech'
nlp.extend(plg)

let doc = nlp('Milwaukee has certainly had its share of visitors..')
doc.compute('syllables')
doc.places().json()
/*
[{
  "text": "Milwaukee",
  "terms": [{
    "normal": "milwaukee",
    "syllables": ["mil", "wau", "kee"]
  }]
}]
*/

avoid the problems of brittle parsers:

let doc = nlp("we're not gonna take it..")

doc.has('gonna') // true
doc.has('going to') // true (implicit)

// transform
doc.contractions().expand()
doc.text()
// 'we are not going to take it..'

and whip stuff around like it's data:

let doc = nlp('ninety five thousand and fifty two')
doc.numbers().add(20)
doc.text()
// 'ninety five thousand and seventy two'

-because it actually is-

let doc = nlp('the purple dinosaur')
doc.nouns().toPlural()
doc.text()
// 'the purple dinosaurs'

Use it on the client-side:

<script src="https://unpkg.com/compromise"></script>
<script>
  var doc = nlp('two bottles of beer')
  doc.numbers().minus(1)
  document.body.innerHTML = doc.text()
  // 'one bottle of beer'
</script>

or likewise:

import nlp from 'compromise'

var doc = nlp('London is calling')
doc.verbs().toNegative()
// 'London is not calling'

compromise is ~250kb (minified):

it's pretty fast. It can run on keypress:

it works mainly by conjugating all forms of a basic word list.

The final lexicon is ~14,000 words:

you can read more about how it works, here. it's weird.

okay -

compromise/one

A tokenizer of words, sentences, and punctuation.

import nlp from 'compromise/one'

let doc = nlp("Wayne's World, party time")
let data = doc.json()
/* [{
  normal:"wayne's world party time",
    terms:[{ text: "Wayne's", normal: "wayne" },
      ...
      ]
  }]
*/

compromise/one splits your text up, wraps it in a handy API,

    and does nothing else -

/one is quick - most sentences take a 10th of a millisecond.

It can do ~1mb of text a second - or 10 wikipedia pages.

Infinite jest takes 3s.

You can also parallelize, or stream text to it with compromise-speed.

compromise/two

A part-of-speech tagger, and grammar-interpreter.

import nlp from 'compromise/two'

let doc = nlp("Wayne's World, party time")
let str = doc.match('#Possessive #Noun').text()
// "Wayne's World"

compromise/two automatically calculates the very basic grammar of each word.

this is more useful than people sometimes realize.

Light grammar helps you write cleaner templates, and get closer to the information.

compromise has 83 tags, arranged in a handsome graph.

#FirstName#Person#ProperNoun#Noun

you can see the grammar of each word by running doc.debug()

you can see the reasoning for each tag with nlp.verbose('tagger').

if you prefer Penn tags, you can derive them with:

let doc = nlp('welcome thrillho')
doc.compute('penn')
doc.json()

compromise/three

Phrase and sentence tooling.

import nlp from 'compromise/three'

let doc = nlp("Wayne's World, party time")
let str = doc.people().normalize().text()
// "wayne"

compromise/three is a set of tooling to zoom into and operate on parts of a text.

.numbers() grabs all the numbers in a document, for example - and extends it with new methods, like .subtract().

When you have a phrase, or group of words, you can see additional metadata about it with .json()

let doc = nlp('four out of five dentists')
console.log(doc.fractions().json())
/*[{
    text: 'four out of five',
    terms: [ [Object], [Object], [Object], [Object] ],
    fraction: { numerator: 4, denominator: 5, decimal: 0.8 }
  }
]*/
let doc = nlp('$4.09CAD')
doc.money().json()
/*[{
    text: '$4.09CAD',
    terms: [ [Object] ],
    number: { prefix: '$', num: 4.09, suffix: 'cad'}
  }
]*/

API

Compromise/one

Output
  • .text() - return the document as text
  • .json() - return the document as data
  • .debug() - pretty-print the interpreted document
  • .out() - a named or custom output
  • .html({}) - output custom html tags for matches
  • .wrap({}) - produce custom output for document matches
Utils
  • .found [getter] - is this document empty?
  • .docs [getter] get term objects as json
  • .length [getter] - count the # of characters in the document (string length)
  • .isView [getter] - identify a compromise object
  • .compute() - run a named analysis on the document
  • .clone() - deep-copy the document, so that no references remain
  • .termList() - return a flat list of all Term objects in match
  • .cache({}) - freeze the current state of the document, for speed-purposes
  • .uncache() - un-freezes the current state of the document, so it may be transformed
  • .freeze({}) - prevent any tags from being removed, in these terms
  • .unfreeze({}) - allow tags to change again, as default
Accessors
Match

(match methods use the match-syntax.)

  • .match('') - return a new Doc, with this one as a parent
  • .not('') - return all results except for this
  • .matchOne('') - return only the first match
  • .if('') - return each current phrase, only if it contains this match ('only')
  • .ifNo('') - Filter-out any current phrases that have this match ('notIf')
  • .has('') - Return a boolean if this match exists
  • .before('') - return all terms before a match, in each phrase
  • .after('') - return all terms after a match, in each phrase
  • .union() - return combined matches without duplicates
  • .intersection() - return only duplicate matches
  • .complement() - get everything not in another match
  • .settle() - remove overlaps from matches
  • .growRight('') - add any matching terms immediately after each match
  • .growLeft('') - add any matching terms immediately before each match
  • .grow('') - add any matching terms before or after each match
  • .sweep(net) - apply a series of match objects to the document
  • .splitOn('') - return a Document with three parts for every match ('splitOn')
  • .splitBefore('') - partition a phrase before each matching segment
  • .splitAfter('') - partition a phrase after each matching segment
  • .join() - merge any neighbouring terms in each match
  • .joinIf(leftMatch, rightMatch) - merge any neighbouring terms under given conditions
  • .lookup([]) - quick find for an array of string matches
  • .autoFill() - create type-ahead assumptions on the document
Tag
  • .tag('') - Give all terms the given tag
  • .tagSafe('') - Only apply tag to terms if it is consistent with current tags
  • .unTag('') - Remove this term from the given terms
  • .canBe('') - return only the terms that can be this tag
Case
Whitespace
  • .pre('') - add this punctuation or whitespace before each match
  • .post('') - add this punctuation or whitespace after each match
  • .trim() - remove start and end whitespace
  • .hyphenate() - connect words with hyphen, and remove whitespace
  • .dehyphenate() - remove hyphens between words, and set whitespace
  • .toQuotations() - add quotation marks around these matches
  • .toParentheses() - add brackets around these matches
Loops
  • .map(fn) - run each phrase through a function, and create a new document
  • .forEach(fn) - run a function on each phrase, as an individual document
  • .filter(fn) - return only the phrases that return true
  • .find(fn) - return a document with only the first phrase that matches
  • .some(fn) - return true or false if there is one matching phrase
  • .random(fn) - sample a subset of the results
Insert
Transform
  • .sort('method') - re-arrange the order of the matches (in place)
  • .reverse() - reverse the order of the matches, but not the words
  • .unique() - remove any duplicate matches
Lib

(these methods are on the main nlp object)

compromise/two:

Contractions

compromise/three:

Nouns
Verbs
Numbers
Sentences
Adjectives
Misc selections

.extend():

This library comes with a considerate, common-sense baseline for english grammar.

You're free to change, or lay-waste to any settings - which is the fun part actually.

the easiest part is just to suggest tags for any given words:

let myWords = {
  kermit: 'FirstName',
  fozzie: 'FirstName',
}
let doc = nlp(muppetText, myWords)

or make heavier changes with a compromise-plugin.

import nlp from 'compromise'
nlp.extend({
  // add new tags
  tags: {
    Character: {
      isA: 'Person',
      notA: 'Adjective',
    },
  },
  // add or change words in the lexicon
  words: {
    kermit: 'Character',
    gonzo: 'Character',
  },
  // change inflections
  irregulars: {
    get: {
      pastTense: 'gotten',
      gerund: 'gettin',
    },
  },
  // add new methods to compromise
  api: View => {
    View.prototype.kermitVoice = function () {
      this.sentences().prepend('well,')
      this.match('i [(am|was)]').prepend('um,')
      return this
    }
  },
})

Docs:

gentle introduction:
Documentation:
ConceptsAPIPlugins
AccuracyAccessorsAdjectives
CachingConstructor-methodsDates
CaseContractionsExport
FilesizeInsertHash
InternalsJsonHtml
JustificationCharacter OffsetsKeypress
LexiconLoopsNgrams
Match-syntaxMatchNumbers
PerformanceNounsParagraphs
PluginsOutputScan
ProjectsSelectionsSentences
TaggerSortingSyllables
TagsSplitPronounce
TokenizationTextStrict
Named-EntitiesUtilsPenn-tags
WhitespaceVerbsTypeahead
World dataNormalizationSweep
Fuzzy-matchingTypescriptMutation
Root-forms
Talks:
Articles:
Some fun Applications:
Comparisons

Plugins:

These are some helpful extensions:

Dates

npm install compromise-dates

Stats

npm install compromise-stats

Speech

npm install compromise-syllables

Wikipedia

npm install compromise-wikipedia


Typescript

we're committed to typescript/deno support, both in main and in the official-plugins:

import nlp from 'compromise'
import stats from 'compromise-stats'

const nlpEx = nlp.extend(stats)

nlpEx('This is type safe!').ngrams({ min: 1 })

Limitations:

  • slash-support: We currently split slashes up as different words, like we do for hyphens. so things like this don't work: nlp('the koala eats/shoots/leaves').has('koala leaves') //false

  • inter-sentence match: By default, sentences are the top-level abstraction. Inter-sentence, or multi-sentence matches aren't supported without a plugin: nlp("that's it. Back to Winnipeg!").has('it back')//false

  • nested match syntax: the danger beauty of regex is that you can recurse indefinitely. Our match syntax is much weaker. Things like this are not (yet) possible: doc.match('(modern (major|minor))? general') complex matches must be achieved with successive .match() statements.

  • dependency parsing: Proper sentence transformation requires understanding the syntax tree of a sentence, which we don't currently do. We should! Help wanted with this.

FAQ

    ☂️ Isn't javascript too...

      yeah it is!
      it wasn't built to compete with NLTK, and may not fit every project.
      string processing is synchronous too, and parallelizing node processes is weird.
      See here for information about speed & performance, and here for project motivations

    💃 Can it run on my arduino-watch?

      Only if it's water-proof!
      Read quick start for running compromise in workers, mobile apps, and all sorts of funny environments.

    🌎 Compromise in other Languages?

    ✨ Partial builds?

      we do offer a tokenize-only build, which has the POS-tagger pulled-out.
      but otherwise, compromise isn't easily tree-shaken.
      the tagging methods are competitive, and greedy, so it's not recommended to pull things out.
      Note that without a full POS-tagging, the contraction-parser won't work perfectly. ((spencer's cool) vs. (spencer's house))
      It's recommended to run the library fully.

See Also:

MIT