But, all in all, we would really need to write a custom Scintilla lexer (the actual lexer program, not a definition file... harsh, but possible) that is interwined with code completion for something that is truly good and nice for everyone.
If something like this is attempted, I have a feature suggestion: an option could be activated to cause Code::Blocks to collect the names of variables, functions, and/or classes the user declares, then highlight them (probably something like a very dark red so it does not get in the way, just makes it visible).
Sintilla's build-in lexer only do some text matching as thomas said. when it find an identifier, it just check if it is in some keyword group, and paint it with the specified color.
See the related code:
sdk\wxscintilla\src\scintilla\lexers\LexCPP.cxx
// Determine if the current state should terminate.
switch (MaskActive(sc.state)) {
case SCE_C_OPERATOR:
sc.SetState(SCE_C_DEFAULT|activitySet);
break;
case SCE_C_NUMBER:
// We accept almost anything because of hex. and number suffixes
if (!(setWord.Contains(sc.ch) || ((sc.ch == '+' || sc.ch == '-') && (sc.chPrev == 'e' || sc.chPrev == 'E')))) {
sc.SetState(SCE_C_DEFAULT|activitySet);
}
break;
case SCE_C_IDENTIFIER:
if (!setWord.Contains(sc.ch) || (sc.ch == '.')) {
char s[1000];
if (caseSensitive) {
sc.GetCurrent(s, sizeof(s));
} else {
sc.GetCurrentLowered(s, sizeof(s));
}
if (keywords.InList(s)) {
lastWordWasUUID = strcmp(s, "uuid") == 0;
sc.ChangeState(SCE_C_WORD|activitySet);
} else if (keywords2.InList(s)) {
sc.ChangeState(SCE_C_WORD2|activitySet);
} else if (keywords4.InList(s)) {
sc.ChangeState(SCE_C_GLOBALCLASS|activitySet);
}
And the keywords group is loaded when the editor initialized, see:
void EditorColourSet::Apply(HighlightLanguage lang, cbStyledTextCtrl* control)
{
if (!control)
return;
control->StyleClearAll();
if (lang == HL_NONE)
return;
// first load the default colours to all styles used by the actual lexer (ignoring some built-in styles)
OptionColour* defaults = GetOptionByName(lang, _T("Default"));
OptionSet& mset = m_Sets[lang];
control->SetLexer(mset.m_Lexers);
control->SetStyleBits(control->GetStyleBitsNeeded());
if (defaults)
{
int countStyles = 1 << control->GetStyleBits();
// walk until countStyles, otherwise the background-colour is only set for characters,
// not for empty background
for (int i = 0; i <= countStyles; ++i)
{
if (i < 33 || (i > 39 && i < wxSCI_STYLE_MAX))
DoApplyStyle(control, i, defaults);
}
}
// for some strange reason, when switching styles, the line numbering changes colour
// too, though we didn't ask it to...
// this makes sure it stays the correct colour
control->StyleSetForeground(wxSCI_STYLE_LINENUMBER, wxSystemSettings::GetColour(wxSYS_COLOUR_BTNTEXT));
for (unsigned int i = 0; i < mset.m_Colours.GetCount(); ++i)
{
OptionColour* opt = mset.m_Colours.Item(i);
if (opt->isStyle)
{
DoApplyStyle(control, opt->value, opt);
}
else
{
if (opt->value == cbHIGHLIGHT_LINE)
{
control->SetCaretLineBackground(opt->back);
Manager::Get()->GetConfigManager(_T("editor"))->Write(_T("/highlight_caret_line_colour"), opt->back);
}
else if (opt->value == cbSELECTION)
{
if (opt->back != wxNullColour)
{
control->SetSelBackground(true, opt->back);
// Manager::Get()->GetConfigManager(_T("editor"))->Write(_T("/selection_colour"), opt->back);
}
else
control->SetSelBackground(false, wxColour(0xC0, 0xC0, 0xC0));
if (opt->fore != wxNullColour)
{
control->SetSelForeground(true, opt->fore);
// Manager::Get()->GetConfigManager(_T("editor"))->Write(_T("/selection_fgcolour"), opt->fore);
}
else
control->SetSelForeground(false, *wxBLACK);
}
// else
// {
// control->MarkerDefine(-opt->value, 1);
// control->MarkerSetBackground(-opt->value, opt->back);
// }
}
}
for (int i = 0; i <= wxSCI_KEYWORDSET_MAX; ++i)
{
control->SetKeyWords(i, mset.m_Keywords[i]);
}
control->Colourise(0, -1); // the *most* important part!
}
So, if we have some opinion to change the
, then we can partly solve the problem.
The sintilla's lexer does not look at the syntax or semantic grammar, so if you have a function name "xxx" and a local variable name "xxx", then they will paint in the same color.
Also we can implement a self lexer, and set different color on different position, see:
http://www.scintilla.org/Lexer.txtMostly, it need to call a function: ColourTo(position, colorStyle);
An alternative would be to use a "state-based" approach. The outer loop
would iterate over states, like this:
lengthDoc = startPos+lenth ;
for ( unsigned int i = startPos ;; ) {
char ch = styler.SafeGetCharAt(i);
int new_state = 0 ;
switch ( state ) {
// scanners set new_state if they set the next state.
case state_1: << scan to the end of state 1 >> break ;
case state_2: << scan to the end of state 2 >> break ;
case default_state:
<< scan to the next non-default state and set new_state >>
}
styler.ColourTo(i, state);
if ( i >= lengthDoc ) break ;
if ( ! new_state ) {
ch = styler.SafeGetCharAt(i);
<< set state based on ch in the default state >>
}
}
styler.ColourTo(lengthDoc - 1, state);
This approach might seem to be more natural. State scanners are simpler
than character scanners because less needs to be done. For example,
there is no need to test for the start of a C string inside the scanner
for a C comment. Also this way makes it natural to define routines that
could be used by more than one scanner; for example, a scanToEndOfLine
routine.
I don't know how cc can help this.
