CSyntaxColorizer: Syntax Highlighting Class

Environment: Visual C++ 6, MFC CRichEditCtrl class

Overview

The default groupings for the CSyntaxColorizer class are as follows:

Group 0: VC++ keywords such as for, if, while, void, etc
Group 1: VC++ compiler directives such as #define, #include, etc
Group 2: VC++ compiler pragmas such as once, auto_inline, etc

CSyntaxColorizer maintains member variables, (m_cfDefault, m_cfComment and m_cfString), of type CHARFORMAT. These defaults are used when the class initializes its internal lists, and whenever the keyword, comment or string colors are changed using the methods that take a COLORREF parameter instead of a CHARFORMAT parameter. These default structures have a font of Courier New, 10pt size. Naturally, the class exposes methods for changing the defaults (see below).

Here are the declarations in CSyntaxColorizer.h for the exposed methods:

void Colorize(long StartChar, 
              long nEndChar, 
              CRichEditCtrl *pCtrl);
void Colorize(CHARRANGE cr, 
              CRichEditCtrl *pCtrl);

void GetCommentStyle(CHARFORMAT &cf) 
{ 
 cf = m_cfComment; 
};

void GetStringStyle(CHARFORMAT &cf) 
{ 
  cf = m_cfString; 
};

void GetGroupStyle(int grp, CHARFORMAT &cf);

void GetDefaultStyle(CHARFORMAT &cf) 
{ 
  cf = m_cfDefault; 
};

void SetCommentStyle(CHARFORMAT cf) 
{ 
  m_cfComment = cf; 
};

void SetCommentColor(COLORREF cr);

void SetStringStyle(CHARFORMAT cf) 
{ 
  m_cfString = cf; 
};

void SetStringColor(COLORREF cr);

void SetGroupStyle(int grp, CHARFORMAT cf);

void SetGroupColor(int grp, COLORREF cr);

void SetDefaultStyle(CHARFORMAT cf) 
{ 
  m_cfDefault = cf; 
};

void AddKeyword(LPCTSTR Keyword, 
                CHARFORMAT cf, 
                int grp = 0); 

void AddKeyword(LPCTSTR Keyword, 
                COLORREF cr, 
                int grp = 0);

void ClearKeywordList();

CString GetKeywordList();

CString GetKeywordList(int grp);

Using CSyntaxColorizer

CSyntaxColorizer sc;
sc.Colorize(0, -1, &m_cRichEditCtrl);

If you don't like the default colors, you can change them:

sc.SetCommentColor(RGB(255,0,0));
sc.SetStringColor(RGB(0,255,0));
sc.SetGroupColor(nMyGroup,RGB(0,0,255));

If it's more than just colors you don't like, then you can set the CHARFORMAT structures using

sc.SetCommentStyle(cfMyStyle);
sc.SetStringStyle(cfMyStyle);
sc.SetGroupStyle(nMyGroup,cfMyStyle);

Adding keywords is easy too. The two AddKeyword methods each take an LPCTSTR as a parameter. The parameter is a NULL terminated list of words separated by commas. For example,

sc.AddKeyword("for,if,while", RGB(255,0,0), 4);

A word about comments...

sc.AddKeyword("REM",cfMyStyle,nMyGroup);

Where a comment starts with // and ends with '\' + '\n' (the line continuation character immediately followed by a newline character) CSyntaxColorizer will recognize it, and treat the next line as a comment line.

Speed

pCtrl->SetSel(iStart,iOffset + x);
pCtrl->SetSelectionCharFormat(pskTemp->cf);

About the Demo

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