syntax highlight

no reply yet? why?

If your editor runs in Windows, try The Code Project. That's a great source for Windows application programming.

Why not try adapting the compiler's own lexer instead? Just integerate it into some editing widget and map each token class onto a color.
That way you don't have to write and maintain multiple parsers, nor restort to hacking togheter a set of regexps that only works half the time.

Might be a bit slow since you'd have to reparse the file all the time, but if it's good enough for nedit..

Your best bet is to find an editor widget that does what you want. Our application is written in Delphi with a Basic-like scripting language. We found an editor component with source that allowed us to extend it as well as use the existing syntax hilighting.

What language are you using?

I have designed one of my own using flex/bison. Actually, I was planning to use my lexer in order to take each token's class, but the 'parse the whole file' thing is what I'm worrying about. I believe I just have to parse the last word typed in order for the highlighter to be fast enough, but its a bit complicated. that's why I would like to see an example first.

[Edited by - thecrow21 on January 23, 2005 3:31:09 PM]

Quote:

Original post by thecrow21 but the 'parse the whole file' thing is what I'm worrying about. I believe I just have to parse the last word typed in order for the highlighter to be fast enough, but its a bit complicated. that's why I would like to see an example first.

Well, nedit is an example of an editor that uses the inefficient way. Why not download it and see for yourself if the method is fast enough?

I guess it depends on your language's syntax. If you don't have any constructs that can span multiple lines it should be fine, otherwise you'll have to rely on complicated and/or imprecise parsing methods.
In the worst case you could always set a limit on how far back you begin the parsing. However that approach is bound to screw up the parsing of gigantic c-style comments.