RADKFILE/KRADFILE

Introduction

This project provides a decomposition of kanji into a number of visual elements or radicals to support software which provides a lookup service using kanji components.

The initial files were based on work done in 1994/1995 by Michael Raine in which he analyzed all the JIS208 kanji and identified the constituent radicals and other common elements, with the intention of facilitating the selection of kanji within a dictionary program (JWP) by identifying multiple elements. The file was coverted into a pair of text files and revised by Jim Breen in September 1995. Many further revisions have been made over the years.

The KRADFILE file

This is the basic file of data. The file consists of 6,355 lines of text; one for each of the JIS X 0208-1997 kanji. Each line is a follows:

The following table (from the WWWJDIC server) shows the radicals/elements used in the decomposition. Note that they are NOT the same as the classical 214 radicals, although there is considerable overlap.

The decomposition is based on what can be seen in typical kanji glyphs. Elements themselves can be further subdivided. For example, Àå is an element and so is ¸ý, so the elements in Ïà are <¸ý Àå ¸À>.

Here is a short sample of the file:

°¥ : °á ¸ý е
°¦ : ¿´ ÄÞ ÑÌ Ôé

The RADKFILE file

The RADKFILE file is an inversion of the KRADFILE file, and is the file used by kanji lookup software. The format is as follows:

For example, the following lines identify the kanji containg the »Ò component:

»Ò 3
³Ç³Ô³Øµ¨µý¶µ¸É¸Ö¸ü¹¥¹¦¹§¹Ú»Æ»Ò»Ú»ú½Î½Ï½ß½æ½ø¸¹½Æ×ÆØÆýÉâËÖÌÒÌÔÍ·ÍûÐÚÒã
Ó¬ÕÓÕÔÕÕÕÖÕ×ÕØÕÙÕÚÕÛÕÜÕÝÕÞ֣أةÙÏÚýÛáÛïÛöÜÚÝËÞßÞâߥß÷çÙè¨éêê¢ëÙî¾ï¾ó¨

RADKFILE2/KRADFILE2

This pair of files cover the additional 5,801 kanji in the JIS X 0212 set. They were prepared by Jim Rose in 2007. They are in the same format as RADKFILE/KRADFILE.

Software

Some of the software that uses the files are:

(*) these use Ajax-like operations for dynamic responses.

Download

The files can be downloaded from the Nihongo ftp archive:

Copyright

The RADKFILE and KRADFILE files are copright and available under the EDRDG Licence. The copyright of the RADKFILE2 and KRADFILE2 files is held by Jim Rose.

Jim Breen
February 2008
July 2017
August 2021