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This is a library for effective moderation of content.

Project description

🚫 BadWords

High-performance profanity filter for Python with multilingual support and evasion detection.

Python Version License: MIT Build Status

Downloads (badwords-py) Downloads (legacy bdw)

InstallationQuick StartSupported LanguagesEvasion DetectionDocumentation


📖 Description

BadWords is a sophisticated profanity filtering library designed to clean up user-generated content. Unlike simple keyword matching, it uses similarity scoring, homoglyph detection, and transliteration to catch even the most cleverly disguised insults.

Architecture: The core is implemented in Rust for performance. Python provides a thin API layer with full type hints for IDE/linter support. The Rust library can also be used directly from Rust projects.

📦 Installation

Requirements

  • Recommended: Python 3.13
  • Minimum: Python 3.10+

Install via GitHub

pip install git+[https://github.com/FlacSy/badwords.git](https://github.com/FlacSy/badwords.git)

Install via PyPI

pip install badwords-py

⚡ Quick Start

Basic Initialization

from badwords import ProfanityFilter

# Initialize filter
p = ProfanityFilter()

# Load specific languages (e.g., English and Russian)
p.init(languages=["en", "ru"])

# Or load ALL 26+ supported languages
p.init()

Checking and Filtering Text

text = "Some very b4d text here"

# 1. Simple check (Returns Boolean)
is_bad = p.filter_text(text)
print(is_bad) # True

# 2. Censoring text (Returns String)
clean_text = p.filter_text(text, replace_character="*")
print(clean_text) # "Some very *** text here"

🛠 Methods & API

filter_text(text, match_threshold=1.0, replace_character=None)

The core method of the library.

Parameter Type Default Description
text str Required Input text to check.
match_threshold float 1.0 Similarity threshold (1.0 = exact match, 0.95 = fuzzy).
replace_character str/None None If provided, returns censored string. If None, returns bool.

[!WARNING] Performance Tip: Using match_threshold < 1.0 enables fuzzy matching which is slower. Use 1.0 for high-traffic real-time filtering, or 0.95 for a good balance.


🧩 Advanced Evasion Detection

Standard filters are easy to bypass. BadWords is built to detect:

  • Homoglyphs: Detects hеllo (using Cyrillic 'е') or h4llo (numbers).
  • Transliteration: Automatically handles mapping between Cyrillic and Latin alphabets.
  • Normalization: Strips diacritics, special characters, and decorative Unicode symbols.
  • Similarity Analysis: Uses fuzzy matching to find words with deliberate typos.

Examples of detected evasions:

_filter.filter_text("hеllо")  # Mixed alphabets (Cyrillic + Latin) -> DETECTED
_filter.filter_text("h3ll0")  # Character substitution -> DETECTED
_filter.filter_text("h⍺llo")  # Mathematical/Greek symbols -> DETECTED
_filter.filter_text("привет") # Transliterated matches -> DETECTED

🌍 Supported Languages

BadWords supports 25 languages out of the box:

Code Language Code Language Code Language
en English ru Russian ua Ukrainian
de German fr French it Italian
sp Spanish pl Polish cz Czech
ja Japanese ko Korean th Thai
br Portuguese (BR) da Danish du Dutch
fi Finnish gr Greek hu Hungarian
in Indonesian lt Lithuanian no Norwegian
po Portuguese ro Romanian sw Swedish
tu Turkish

Use p.get_all_languages() in code. Full list with word counts: badwords.flacsy.dev


🚀 Full Integration Example

from badwords import ProfanityFilter

def monitor_chat():
    # Setup for a global chat
    profanity_filter = ProfanityFilter()
    profanity_filter.init(["en", "ru", "de"])
    
    # Custom project-specific banned words
    profanity_filter.add_words(["spam_link_v1", "scam_bot_99"])

    user_input = "Hey! Check out this b.a.d.w.o.r.d"
    
    # Moderate with high accuracy
    is_offensive = profanity_filter.filter_text(user_input, match_threshold=0.95)
    
    if is_offensive:
        print("Message blocked: Contains restricted language.")
    else:
        # Proceed with processing
        pass

if __name__ == "__main__":
    monitor_chat()

🦀 Rust API (badwords-core)

Published on crates.io:

[dependencies]
badwords-core = "2"
use badwords_core::{ProfanityFilter, default_resource_dir};

let resource_dir = default_resource_dir();
let mut filter = ProfanityFilter::new(&resource_dir, true, true, true, true);
filter.init(None).unwrap();
filter.add_words(&["custom".to_string()]);
let (found, _) = filter.filter_text("hello", 1.0, None);

🌐 WebAssembly (JavaScript/TypeScript)

Same Rust code for browser and Node.js, compiled to WASM.

Build

# Browser
make wasm

# Node.js
make wasm-nodejs

Frontend (browser)

<script type="module">
  import init, { ProfanityFilter } from './path/to/badwords_wasm.js';
  await init();
  const filter = new ProfanityFilter();
  console.log(filter.isBad('text'));      // boolean
  console.log(filter.censor('text', '*')); // string
</script>

Backend (Node.js)

const { ProfanityFilter } = require('badwords-wasm');
const filter = new ProfanityFilter();
filter.isBad('hello');           // false
filter.censor('bad word', '*');  // "*** word"
filter.addWords(['custom']);

Optional languages (npm)

Built-in: en and ru. Additional languages via @badwords/languages:

npm install badwords-wasm @badwords/languages
import init, { ProfanityFilter } from 'badwords-wasm';
import de from '@badwords/languages/de';
import ua from '@badwords/languages/ua';

await init();
const filter = new ProfanityFilter();
filter.addWords(de);
filter.addWords(ua);

Available: br, cz, da, de, du, en, fi, fr, gr, hu, in, it, ja, ko, lt, no, pl, po, ro, ru, sp, sw, th, tu, ua. See @badwords/languages.

Examples: examples/wasm/browser/, examples/wasm/node/

🔧 Building from source

Requires: Rust, Python, maturin

python -m venv .venv && source .venv/bin/activate  # Linux/macOS
pip install maturin
make develop
# or: cd python && maturin build && pip install target/wheels/badwords_py-*.whl

🌐 WebAssembly (browser & Node.js)

Build the WASM package (requires wasm-pack):

cargo install wasm-pack
make wasm

Output: rust/badwords-wasm/pkg/ (npm package badwords-wasm)

  • Browser: Use the generated JS with a bundler or static server. See examples/wasm/browser/
  • Node.js: import init, { ProfanityFilter } from 'badwords-wasm' after npm install. See examples/wasm/node/
  • Publish to npm: make wasm or make wasm-nodejs, then make npm-publish
  • Optional languages: @badwords/languagesmake lang-packages then make npm-publish-languages

📚 Documentation

Full documentation (Python, Rust, JavaScript) with examples and API reference: badwords.flacsy.dev (EN / RU).

🤝 Contributing

Contributions are what make the open-source community an amazing place to learn, inspire, and create.

  1. Fork the Project
  2. Create your Feature Branch (git checkout -b feature/AmazingFeature)
  3. Commit your Changes (git commit -m 'Add AmazingFeature')
  4. Push to the Branch (git push origin feature/AmazingFeature)
  5. Open a Pull Request

📄 License

Distributed under the MIT License. See LICENSE for more information.

Developed with ❤️ by FlacSy

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