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syntaxeditorsyntax-highlightinglazarus

How Is Syntax Highlighting Built?

I'm now building a developers editor using Lazarus and as every good developers editor, it needs to have a syntax highlighting, because of this that I want to know some things:

  • How is syntax highlight normally built(using many ifs to change the font on a TextField?
  • TSynEdit is very nice to do this?
  • How to use TSynEdit(links and resources)?
Solution

  • You can actually see an excellent example for yourself if you look at the editor for SharpDevelop. It's implemented in C# but uses great OOP that should be readily portable to other platforms or languages.

    Most home-brewed syntax highlighters tend to use the MS Windows RichText control but they're usually slow and clunky and really slow down when a lot of code is added.