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Walkthrough: Display matching braces

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Implement language-based features, such as, brace matching by defining the braces you want to match, and adding a text marker tag to the matching braces when the caret is on one of the braces. You can define braces in the context of a language, define your own file name extension and content type, and apply the tags to just that type or apply the tags to an existing content type (such as "text"). The following walkthrough shows how to apply brace matching tags to the "text" content type.

Create a Managed Extensibility Framework (MEF) project

To create a MEF project

  1. Create an Editor Classifier project. Name the solution BraceMatchingTest.

  2. Add an Editor Classifier item template to the project. For more information, see Create an extension with an editor item template.

  3. Delete the existing class files.

Implement a brace matching tagger

To get a brace highlighting effect that resembles the one that's used in Visual Studio, you can implement a tagger of type TextMarkerTag. The following code shows how to define the tagger for brace pairs at any level of nesting. In this example, the brace pairs of [] and {} are defined in the tagger constructor, but in a full language implementation, the relevant brace pairs would be defined in the language specification.

To implement a brace matching tagger

  1. Add a class file and name it BraceMatching.

  2. Import the following namespaces.

    using System;
using System.Linq;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.ComponentModel.Composition;
using Microsoft.VisualStudio.Text;
using Microsoft.VisualStudio.Text.Editor;
using Microsoft.VisualStudio.Text.Tagging;
using Microsoft.VisualStudio.Utilities;

  3. Define a class BraceMatchingTagger that inherits from ITagger<T> of type TextMarkerTag.

    internal class BraceMatchingTagger : ITagger<TextMarkerTag>

  4. Add properties for the text view, the source buffer, the current snapshot point, and also a set of brace pairs.

    ITextView View { get; set; }
ITextBuffer SourceBuffer { get; set; }
SnapshotPoint? CurrentChar { get; set; }
private Dictionary<char, char> m_braceList;

  5. In the tagger constructor, set the properties and subscribe to the view change events PositionChanged and LayoutChanged. In this example, for illustrative purposes, the matching pairs are also defined in the constructor.

    internal BraceMatchingTagger(ITextView view, ITextBuffer sourceBuffer)
{
    //here the keys are the open braces, and the values are the close braces
    m_braceList = new Dictionary<char, char>();
    m_braceList.Add('{', '}');
    m_braceList.Add('[', ']');
    m_braceList.Add('(', ')');
    this.View = view;
    this.SourceBuffer = sourceBuffer;
    this.CurrentChar = null;

    this.View.Caret.PositionChanged += CaretPositionChanged;
    this.View.LayoutChanged += ViewLayoutChanged;
}

  6. As part of the ITagger<T> implementation, declare a TagsChanged event.

    public event EventHandler<SnapshotSpanEventArgs> TagsChanged;

  7. The event handlers update the current caret position of the CurrentChar property and raise the TagsChanged event.

    void ViewLayoutChanged(object sender, TextViewLayoutChangedEventArgs e)
{
    if (e.NewSnapshot != e.OldSnapshot) //make sure that there has really been a change
    {
        UpdateAtCaretPosition(View.Caret.Position);
    }
}

void CaretPositionChanged(object sender, CaretPositionChangedEventArgs e)
{
    UpdateAtCaretPosition(e.NewPosition);
}
void UpdateAtCaretPosition(CaretPosition caretPosition)
{
    CurrentChar = caretPosition.Point.GetPoint(SourceBuffer, caretPosition.Affinity);

    if (!CurrentChar.HasValue)
        return;

    var tempEvent = TagsChanged;
    if (tempEvent != null)
        tempEvent(this, new SnapshotSpanEventArgs(new SnapshotSpan(SourceBuffer.CurrentSnapshot, 0,
            SourceBuffer.CurrentSnapshot.Length)));
}

  8. Implement the GetTags method to match braces either when the current character is an open brace or when the previous character is a close brace, as in Visual Studio. When the match is found, this method instantiates two tags, one for the open brace and one for the close brace.

    public IEnumerable<ITagSpan<TextMarkerTag>> GetTags(NormalizedSnapshotSpanCollection spans)
{
    if (spans.Count == 0)   //there is no content in the buffer
        yield break;

    //don't do anything if the current SnapshotPoint is not initialized or at the end of the buffer
    if (!CurrentChar.HasValue || CurrentChar.Value.Position >= CurrentChar.Value.Snapshot.Length)
        yield break;

    //hold on to a snapshot of the current character
    SnapshotPoint currentChar = CurrentChar.Value;

    //if the requested snapshot isn't the same as the one the brace is on, translate our spans to the expected snapshot
    if (spans[0].Snapshot != currentChar.Snapshot)
    {
        currentChar = currentChar.TranslateTo(spans[0].Snapshot, PointTrackingMode.Positive);
    }

    //get the current char and the previous char
    char currentText = currentChar.GetChar();
    SnapshotPoint lastChar = currentChar == 0 ? currentChar : currentChar - 1; //if currentChar is 0 (beginning of buffer), don't move it back
    char lastText = lastChar.GetChar();
    SnapshotSpan pairSpan = new SnapshotSpan();

    if (m_braceList.ContainsKey(currentText))   //the key is the open brace
    {
        char closeChar;
        m_braceList.TryGetValue(currentText, out closeChar);
        if (BraceMatchingTagger.FindMatchingCloseChar(currentChar, currentText, closeChar, View.TextViewLines.Count, out pairSpan) == true)
        {
            yield return new TagSpan<TextMarkerTag>(new SnapshotSpan(currentChar, 1), new TextMarkerTag("blue"));
            yield return new TagSpan<TextMarkerTag>(pairSpan, new TextMarkerTag("blue"));
        }
    }
    else if (m_braceList.ContainsValue(lastText))    //the value is the close brace, which is the *previous* character 
    {
        var open = from n in m_braceList
                   where n.Value.Equals(lastText)
                   select n.Key;
        if (BraceMatchingTagger.FindMatchingOpenChar(lastChar, (char)open.ElementAt<char>(0), lastText, View.TextViewLines.Count, out pairSpan) == true)
        {
            yield return new TagSpan<TextMarkerTag>(new SnapshotSpan(lastChar, 1), new TextMarkerTag("blue"));
            yield return new TagSpan<TextMarkerTag>(pairSpan, new TextMarkerTag("blue"));
        }
    }
}

  9. The following private methods find the matching brace at any level of nesting. The first method finds the close character that matches the open character:

    private static bool FindMatchingCloseChar(SnapshotPoint startPoint, char open, char close, int maxLines, out SnapshotSpan pairSpan)
{
    pairSpan = new SnapshotSpan(startPoint.Snapshot, 1, 1);
    ITextSnapshotLine line = startPoint.GetContainingLine();
    string lineText = line.GetText();
    int lineNumber = line.LineNumber;
    int offset = startPoint.Position - line.Start.Position + 1;

    int stopLineNumber = startPoint.Snapshot.LineCount - 1;
    if (maxLines > 0)
        stopLineNumber = Math.Min(stopLineNumber, lineNumber + maxLines);

    int openCount = 0;
    while (true)
    {
        //walk the entire line
        while (offset < line.Length)
        {
            char currentChar = lineText[offset];
            if (currentChar == close) //found the close character
            {
                if (openCount > 0)
                {
                    openCount--;
                }
                else    //found the matching close
                {
                    pairSpan = new SnapshotSpan(startPoint.Snapshot, line.Start + offset, 1);
                    return true;
                }
            }
            else if (currentChar == open) // this is another open
            {
                openCount++;
            }
            offset++;
        }

        //move on to the next line
        if (++lineNumber > stopLineNumber)
            break;

        line = line.Snapshot.GetLineFromLineNumber(lineNumber);
        lineText = line.GetText();
        offset = 0;
    }

    return false;
}

  10. The following helper method finds the open character that matches a close character:

    private static bool FindMatchingOpenChar(SnapshotPoint startPoint, char open, char close, int maxLines, out SnapshotSpan pairSpan)
{
    pairSpan = new SnapshotSpan(startPoint, startPoint);

    ITextSnapshotLine line = startPoint.GetContainingLine();

    int lineNumber = line.LineNumber;
    int offset = startPoint - line.Start - 1; //move the offset to the character before this one

    //if the offset is negative, move to the previous line
    if (offset < 0)
    {
        line = line.Snapshot.GetLineFromLineNumber(--lineNumber);
        offset = line.Length - 1;
    }

    string lineText = line.GetText();

    int stopLineNumber = 0;
    if (maxLines > 0)
        stopLineNumber = Math.Max(stopLineNumber, lineNumber - maxLines);

    int closeCount = 0;

    while (true)
    {
        // Walk the entire line
        while (offset >= 0)
        {
            char currentChar = lineText[offset];

            if (currentChar == open)
            {
                if (closeCount > 0)
                {
                    closeCount--;
                }
                else // We've found the open character
                {
                    pairSpan = new SnapshotSpan(line.Start + offset, 1); //we just want the character itself
                    return true;
                }
            }
            else if (currentChar == close)
            {
                closeCount++;
            }
            offset--;
        }

        // Move to the previous line
        if (--lineNumber < stopLineNumber)
            break;

        line = line.Snapshot.GetLineFromLineNumber(lineNumber);
        lineText = line.GetText();
        offset = line.Length - 1;
    }
    return false;
}

Implement a brace matching tagger provider

In addition to implementing a tagger, you must also implement and export a tagger provider. In this case, the content type of the provider is "text". So, brace matching will appear in all types of text files, but a fuller implementation applies brace matching only to a specific content type.

To implement a brace matching tagger provider

  1. Declare a tagger provider that inherits from IViewTaggerProvider, name it BraceMatchingTaggerProvider, and export it with a ContentTypeAttribute of "text" and a TagTypeAttribute of TextMarkerTag.

    [Export(typeof(IViewTaggerProvider))]
[ContentType("text")]
[TagType(typeof(TextMarkerTag))]
internal class BraceMatchingTaggerProvider : IViewTaggerProvider

  2. Implement the CreateTagger method to instantiate a BraceMatchingTagger.

    public ITagger<T> CreateTagger<T>(ITextView textView, ITextBuffer buffer) where T : ITag
{
    if (textView == null)
        return null;

    //provide highlighting only on the top-level buffer
    if (textView.TextBuffer != buffer)
        return null;

    return new BraceMatchingTagger(textView, buffer) as ITagger<T>;
}

Build and test the code

To test this code, build the BraceMatchingTest solution and run it in the experimental instance.

To build and test BraceMatchingTest solution

  1. Build the solution.

  2. When you run this project in the debugger, a second instance of Visual Studio is started.

  3. Create a text file and type some text that includes matching braces.

    hello {
goodbye}

{}

{hello}

  4. When you position the caret before an open brace, both that brace and the matching close brace should be highlighted. When you position the cursor just after the close brace, both that brace and the matching open brace should be highlighted.

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