Sam's Blog

25 Nov

A general brace matching tagger for Visual Studio 2010

I haven’t perfected it yet, but here is a fairly general brace matching tagger that seems to work very well. It relies on the classifier for the content type properly tagging comments and literals with classification types derived from PredefinedClassificationTypeNames.Comment and PredefinedClassificationTypeNames.Literal, which any decent classifier will do.

This example really shows a big improvement in Visual Studio 2010. None of my Visual Studio 2008 language services have brace matching this effective and they’re getting jealous.

Here is an example of providing a brace matcher for a “java” content type:

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namespace JavaLanguageService
{
    using System.Collections.Generic;
    using System.ComponentModel.Composition;
    using CustomLanguageService.Text;
    using Microsoft.VisualStudio.Text;
    using Microsoft.VisualStudio.Text.Classification;
    using Microsoft.VisualStudio.Text.Editor;
    using Microsoft.VisualStudio.Text.Tagging;
    using Microsoft.VisualStudio.Utilities;
 
    [Export(typeof(IViewTaggerProvider))]
    [ContentType(Constants.JavaContentType)]
    [TagType(typeof(TextMarkerTag))]
    public sealed class JavaBraceMatchingTaggerProvider : IViewTaggerProvider
    {
        [Import]
        public IClassifierAggregatorService AggregatorService;
 
        public ITagger<T> CreateTagger<T>(ITextView textView, ITextBuffer buffer) where T : ITag
        {
            if (textView == null)
                return null;
 
            var aggregator = AggregatorService.GetClassifier(buffer);
            var pairs = new KeyValuePair<char, char>[]
                {
                    new KeyValuePair<char, char>('(', ')'),
                    new KeyValuePair<char, char>('{', '}'),
                    new KeyValuePair<char, char>('[', ']')
                };
            return new BraceMatchingTagger(textView, buffer, aggregator, pairs) as ITagger<T>;
        }
    }
}

And here is the brace matching tagger. Depending on the characteristics of your language, you may be able to use this will little to no modification.

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namespace CustomLanguageService.Text
{
    using System;
    using System.Collections.Generic;
    using System.Collections.ObjectModel;
    using System.Diagnostics.Contracts;
    using System.Linq;
    using Microsoft.VisualStudio.Language.StandardClassification;
    using Microsoft.VisualStudio.Text;
    using Microsoft.VisualStudio.Text.Classification;
    using Microsoft.VisualStudio.Text.Editor;
    using Microsoft.VisualStudio.Text.Tagging;
 
    internal sealed class BraceMatchingTagger : ITagger<TextMarkerTag>
    {
        public event EventHandler<SnapshotSpanEventArgs> TagsChanged;
 
        public BraceMatchingTagger(ITextView textView, ITextBuffer sourceBuffer, IClassifier aggregator, IEnumerable<KeyValuePair<char, char>> matchingCharacters)
        {
            Contract.Requires<ArgumentNullException>(textView != null);
            Contract.Requires<ArgumentNullException>(sourceBuffer != null);
            Contract.Requires<ArgumentNullException>(aggregator != null);
            Contract.Requires<ArgumentNullException>(matchingCharacters != null);
 
            this.TextView = textView;
            this.SourceBuffer = sourceBuffer;
            this.Aggregator = aggregator;
            this.MatchingCharacters = matchingCharacters.ToList().AsReadOnly();
 
            this.TextView.Caret.PositionChanged += Caret_PositionChanged;
            this.TextView.LayoutChanged += TextView_LayoutChanged;
        }
 
        public ITextView TextView
        {
            get;
            private set;
        }
 
        public ITextBuffer SourceBuffer
        {
            get;
            private set;
        }
 
        public IClassifier Aggregator
        {
            get;
            private set;
        }
 
        public ReadOnlyCollection<KeyValuePair<char, char>> MatchingCharacters
        {
            get;
            private set;
        }
 
        private SnapshotPoint? CurrentChar
        {
            get;
            set;
        }
 
        private static bool IsInCommentOrLiteral(IClassifier aggregator, SnapshotPoint point, PositionAffinity affinity)
        {
            Contract.Requires(aggregator != null);
 
            // TODO: handle affinity
            SnapshotSpan span = new SnapshotSpan(point, 1);
 
            var classifications = aggregator.GetClassificationSpans(span);
            var relevant = classifications.FirstOrDefault(classificationSpan => classificationSpan.Span.Contains(point));
            if (relevant == null || relevant.ClassificationType == null)
                return false;
 
            return relevant.ClassificationType.IsOfType(PredefinedClassificationTypeNames.Comment)
                || relevant.ClassificationType.IsOfType(PredefinedClassificationTypeNames.Literal);
        }
 
        private bool IsMatchStartCharacter(char c)
        {
            return MatchingCharacters.Any(pair => pair.Key == c);
        }
 
        private bool IsMatchCloseCharacter(char c)
        {
            return MatchingCharacters.Any(pair => pair.Value == c);
        }
 
        private char GetMatchCloseCharacter(char c)
        {
            return MatchingCharacters.First(pair => pair.Key == c).Value;
        }
 
        private char GetMatchOpenCharacter(char c)
        {
            return MatchingCharacters.First(pair => pair.Value == c).Key;
        }
 
        private static bool FindMatchingCloseChar(SnapshotPoint start, IClassifier aggregator, char open, char close, int maxLines, out SnapshotSpan pairSpan)
        {
            pairSpan = new SnapshotSpan(start.Snapshot, 1, 1);
            ITextSnapshotLine line = start.GetContainingLine();
            string lineText = line.GetText();
            int lineNumber = line.LineNumber;
            int offset = start.Position - line.Start.Position + 1;
 
            int stopLineNumber = start.Snapshot.LineCount - 1;
            if (maxLines > 0)
                stopLineNumber = Math.Min(stopLineNumber, lineNumber + maxLines);
 
            int openCount = 0;
            while (true)
            {
                while (offset < line.Length)
                {
                    char currentChar = lineText[offset];
                    // TODO: is this the correct affinity
                    if (currentChar == close && !IsInCommentOrLiteral(aggregator, new SnapshotPoint(start.Snapshot, offset + line.Start.Position), PositionAffinity.Successor))
                    {
                        if (openCount > 0)
                        {
                            openCount--;
                        }
                        else
                        {
                            pairSpan = new SnapshotSpan(start.Snapshot, line.Start + offset, 1);
                            return true;
                        }
                    }
                    // TODO: is this the correct affinity
                    else if (currentChar == open && !IsInCommentOrLiteral(aggregator, new SnapshotPoint(start.Snapshot, offset + line.Start.Position), PositionAffinity.Successor))
                    {
                        openCount++;
                    }
 
                    offset++;
                }
 
                // move on to the next line
                lineNumber++;
                if (lineNumber > stopLineNumber)
                    break;
 
                line = line.Snapshot.GetLineFromLineNumber(lineNumber);
                lineText = line.GetText();
                offset = 0;
            }
 
            return false;
        }
 
        private static bool FindMatchingOpenChar(SnapshotPoint start, IClassifier aggregator, char open, char close, int maxLines, out SnapshotSpan pairSpan)
        {
            pairSpan = new SnapshotSpan(start, start);
            ITextSnapshotLine line = start.GetContainingLine();
            int lineNumber = line.LineNumber;
            int offset = start - line.Start - 1;
 
            // if the offset is negative, move to the previous line
            if (offset < 0)
            {
                lineNumber--;
                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)
            {
                while (offset >= 0)
                {
                    char currentChar = lineText[offset];
                    // TODO: is this the correct affinity
                    if (currentChar == open && !IsInCommentOrLiteral(aggregator, new SnapshotPoint(start.Snapshot, offset + line.Start.Position), PositionAffinity.Successor))
                    {
                        if (closeCount > 0)
                        {
                            closeCount--;
                        }
                        else
                        {
                            pairSpan = new SnapshotSpan(line.Start + offset, 1);
                            return true;
                        }
                    }
                    // TODO: is this the correct affinity
                    else if (currentChar == close && !IsInCommentOrLiteral(aggregator, new SnapshotPoint(start.Snapshot, offset + line.Start.Position), PositionAffinity.Successor))
                    {
                        closeCount++;
                    }
 
                    offset--;
                }
 
                // move to the previous line
                lineNumber--;
                if (lineNumber < stopLineNumber)
                    break;
 
                line = line.Snapshot.GetLineFromLineNumber(lineNumber);
                lineText = line.GetText();
                offset = line.Length - 1;
            }
 
            return false;
        }
 
        public IEnumerable<ITagSpan<TextMarkerTag>> GetTags(NormalizedSnapshotSpanCollection spans)
        {
            if (spans.Count == 0)
                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
            var currentChar = CurrentChar.Value;
 
            if (IsInCommentOrLiteral(Aggregator, currentChar, TextView.Caret.Position.Affinity))
                yield break;
 
            // if the requested snapshot isn't the same as the one the brace is on, translate our spans to the expected snapshot
            currentChar = currentChar.TranslateTo(spans[0].Snapshot, PointTrackingMode.Positive);
 
            // get the current char and the previous char
            char currentText = currentChar.GetChar();
            // if current char is 0 (beginning of buffer), don't move it back
            SnapshotPoint lastChar = currentChar == 0 ? currentChar : currentChar - 1;
            char lastText = lastChar.GetChar();
            SnapshotSpan pairSpan = new SnapshotSpan();
 
            if (IsMatchStartCharacter(currentText))
            {
                char closeChar = GetMatchCloseCharacter(currentText);
                /* TODO: Need to improve handling of larger blocks. this won't highlight if the matching brace is more
                 *       than 1 screen's worth of lines away. Changing this to 10 * TextView.TextViewLines.Count seemed
                 *       to improve the situation.
                 */
                if (BraceMatchingTagger.FindMatchingCloseChar(currentChar, Aggregator, currentText, closeChar, TextView.TextViewLines.Count, out pairSpan))
                {
                    yield return new TagSpan<TextMarkerTag>(new SnapshotSpan(currentChar, 1), PredefinedTextMarkerTags.BraceHighlight);
                    yield return new TagSpan<TextMarkerTag>(pairSpan, PredefinedTextMarkerTags.BraceHighlight);
                }
            }
            else if (IsMatchCloseCharacter(lastText))
            {
                var open = GetMatchOpenCharacter(lastText);
                if (BraceMatchingTagger.FindMatchingOpenChar(lastChar, Aggregator, open, lastText, TextView.TextViewLines.Count, out pairSpan))
                {
                    yield return new TagSpan<TextMarkerTag>(new SnapshotSpan(lastChar, 1), PredefinedTextMarkerTags.BraceHighlight);
                    yield return new TagSpan<TextMarkerTag>(pairSpan, PredefinedTextMarkerTags.BraceHighlight);
                }
            }
        }
 
        private void UpdateAtCaretPosition(CaretPosition caretPosition)
        {
            CurrentChar = caretPosition.Point.GetPoint(SourceBuffer, caretPosition.Affinity);
            if (!CurrentChar.HasValue)
                return;
 
            var t = TagsChanged;
            if (t != null)
                t(this, new SnapshotSpanEventArgs(new SnapshotSpan(SourceBuffer.CurrentSnapshot, 0, SourceBuffer.CurrentSnapshot.Length)));
        }
 
        private void TextView_LayoutChanged(object sender, TextViewLayoutChangedEventArgs e)
        {
            if (e.NewSnapshot != e.OldSnapshot)
                UpdateAtCaretPosition(TextView.Caret.Position);
        }
 
        private void Caret_PositionChanged(object sender, CaretPositionChangedEventArgs e)
        {
            UpdateAtCaretPosition(e.NewPosition);
        }
    }
}

Posted in Programming, Tutorials by: 280Z28
2 Comments

25 Nov

Tool tips for squiggles and URLs in Visual Studio 2010

I’ve been experimenting with Visual Studio’s new extensibility model, and ran into a problem with squiggles. It seems that despite having an internal IQuickInfoSource for the SquiggleTag and IUrlTag, it’s not hooked up to a IIntellisenseController so it never appears. Here is a general implementation for an SquiggleQuickInfoIntellisenseController and UrlQuickInfoIntellisenseController that will provide QuickInfo for squiggle tags and URLs provided by custom implementations of ITagger<SquiggleTag>. The controller itself is a generic that supports any ITag that comes with a IQuickInfoSource.

This code is very heavily based on an existing internal IntelliSense controller in Visual Studio 2010 that’s used for a different tag type.

First we have the IIntellisenseControllerProvider for squiggles and URLs:

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namespace CustomLanguageServices.Text
{
    using System;
    using System.Collections.Generic;
    using System.ComponentModel.Composition;
    using Microsoft.VisualStudio.Language.Intellisense;
    using Microsoft.VisualStudio.Text;
    using Microsoft.VisualStudio.Text.Editor;
    using Microsoft.VisualStudio.Text.Tagging;
    using Microsoft.VisualStudio.Utilities;
 
    [Export(typeof(IIntellisenseControllerProvider))]
    [ContentType("text")]
    public sealed class SquiggleQuickInfoControllerProvider : IIntellisenseControllerProvider
    {
        [Import]
        public IQuickInfoBroker QuickInfoBroker;
 
        [Import]
        public IViewTagAggregatorFactoryService TagAggregatorFactoryService;
 
        public IIntellisenseController TryCreateIntellisenseController(ITextView textView, IList<ITextBuffer> subjectBuffers)
        {
            Func<TagQuickInfoController<SquiggleTag>> creator =
                () =>
                {
                    var tagAggregator = TagAggregatorFactoryService.CreateTagAggregator<SquiggleTag>(textView);
                    var controller = new TagQuickInfoController<SquiggleTag>(QuickInfoBroker, textView, tagAggregator);
                    return controller;
                };
 
            return textView.Properties.GetOrCreateSingletonProperty(creator);
        }
    }
 
    [Export(typeof(IIntellisenseControllerProvider))]
    [ContentType("text")]
    public sealed class UrlQuickInfoControllerProvider : IIntellisenseControllerProvider
    {
        [Import]
        public IQuickInfoBroker QuickInfoBroker;
 
        [Import]
        public IViewTagAggregatorFactoryService TagAggregatorFactoryService;
 
        public IIntellisenseController TryCreateIntellisenseController(ITextView textView, IList<ITextBuffer> subjectBuffers)
        {
            Func<TagQuickInfoController<IUrlTag>> creator =
                () =>
                {
                    var tagAggregator = TagAggregatorFactoryService.CreateTagAggregator<IUrlTag>(textView);
                    var controller = new TagQuickInfoController<IUrlTag>(QuickInfoBroker, textView, tagAggregator);
                    return controller;
                };
 
            return textView.Properties.GetOrCreateSingletonProperty(creator);
        }
    }
}

And then we have the actual IIntellisenseController:

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namespace CustomLanguageService.Text
{
    using Microsoft.VisualStudio.Language.Intellisense;
    using Microsoft.VisualStudio.Text;
    using Microsoft.VisualStudio.Text.Editor;
    using Microsoft.VisualStudio.Text.Tagging;
 
    public class TagQuickInfoController<T> : IIntellisenseController
        where T : ITag
    {
        private IQuickInfoBroker _quickInfoBroker;
        private ITextView _textView;
        private ITagAggregator<T> _tagAggregator;
        private ITextBuffer _surfaceBuffer;
        private IQuickInfoSession _session;
 
        public TagQuickInfoController(IQuickInfoBroker quickInfoBroker, ITextView textView, ITagAggregator<T> tagAggregator)
        {
            this._quickInfoBroker = quickInfoBroker;
            this._textView = textView;
            this._tagAggregator = tagAggregator;
 
            this._surfaceBuffer = textView.TextViewModel.DataBuffer;
            this._surfaceBuffer.Changed += OnSurfaceBuffer_Changed;
            this._textView.MouseHover += OnTextView_MouseHover;
            this._textView.Caret.PositionChanged += OnCaret_PositionChanged;
        }
 
        public void ConnectSubjectBuffer(ITextBuffer subjectBuffer)
        {
        }
 
        public void Detach(ITextView textView)
        {
            this._surfaceBuffer.Changed -= OnSurfaceBuffer_Changed;
            this._textView.MouseHover -= OnTextView_MouseHover;
            this._textView.Caret.PositionChanged -= OnCaret_PositionChanged;
            if (this._tagAggregator != null)
            {
                this._tagAggregator.Dispose();
                this._tagAggregator = null;
            }
        }
 
        public void DisconnectSubjectBuffer(ITextBuffer subjectBuffer)
        {
        }
 
        internal void DismissSession()
        {
            if ((this._session != null) && !this._session.IsDismissed)
            {
                this._session.Dismiss();
                this._session = null;
            }
        }
 
        private bool EnsureSessionStillValid(SnapshotPoint point)
        {
            if (this._session != null)
            {
                if (this._session.IsDismissed)
                {
                    this._session = null;
                    return false;
                }
                if ((this._session.ApplicableToSpan.TextBuffer == point.Snapshot.TextBuffer) && this._session.ApplicableToSpan.GetSpan(point.Snapshot).IntersectsWith(new Span(point.Position, 0)))
                {
                    return true;
                }
                this._session.Dismiss();
                this._session = null;
            }
            return false;
        }
 
        private bool TryExtractQuickInfoFromMarkers(int position)
        {
            IMappingTagSpan<T> mappingTagSpan = null;
 
            foreach (IMappingTagSpan<T> span in this._tagAggregator.GetTags(new SnapshotSpan(this._textView.TextSnapshot, position, 1)))
            {
                if (span.Tag != null)
                    mappingTagSpan = span;
            }
 
            if (mappingTagSpan != null)
            {
                NormalizedSnapshotSpanCollection spans = mappingTagSpan.Span.GetSpans(this._textView.TextBuffer);
                if (spans.Count > 0)
                {
                    this.DismissSession();
                    SnapshotSpan span = spans[0];
                    ITrackingPoint triggerPoint = span.Snapshot.CreateTrackingPoint(span.Start.Position, PointTrackingMode.Positive);
                    this._session = this._quickInfoBroker.CreateQuickInfoSession(this._textView, triggerPoint, true);
                    this._session.Start();
                    return true;
                }
            }
 
            return false;
        }
 
        private void OnSurfaceBuffer_Changed(object sender, TextContentChangedEventArgs e)
        {
            this.DismissSession();
        }
 
        private void OnTextView_MouseHover(object sender, MouseHoverEventArgs e)
        {
            SnapshotPoint? nullable = e.TextPosition.GetPoint(this._surfaceBuffer, PositionAffinity.Successor);
            if (!nullable.HasValue)
                return;
 
            SnapshotPoint point = nullable.Value;
            if (this.EnsureSessionStillValid(point))
                return;
 
            if (this._tagAggregator != null)
            {
                this.TryExtractQuickInfoFromMarkers(e.Position);
            }
        }
 
        private void OnCaret_PositionChanged(object sender, CaretPositionChangedEventArgs e)
        {
            this.DismissSession();
        }
    }
}

Posted in Programming, Tutorials by: 280Z28
No Comments

25 Mar

Visual Studio language services: Improved brace matching hooks

By default, brace matching is performed in response to the left and right arrow keys. It should be done in response to several additional commands, as shown below.

Continue Reading »

Posted in Programming, Tutorials by: 280Z28
No Comments

20 Oct

ANTLR integration in Visual Studio

I put up a tech preview of the tool I wrote to help with my language services development. It’s a basic ANTLR v3 language service that integrates into Visual Studio 2005 and/or 2008. While it doesn’t have the feature set of, say, ANTLRworks, it’s still proven extremely useful for my development tasks. If you are following my articles on developing Visual Studio language services built on ANTLR, you may find it helpful. The main page for the project is here:
http://wiki.pixelminegames.com/index.php?title=Tools:nFringe:Antlr

And a list of features with screenshots is here:
http://wiki.pixelminegames.com/index.php?title=Tools:nFringe:Antlr:Features

Syntax highlighting and Quick Info Parser rules dropdown

Posted in Programming, Tips & Tricks by: 280Z28
4 Comments

19 Oct

ManagedMyC: Type and member dropdown bars

This is part 4 of [many?] posts about creating an ANTLR-based language service for Visual Studio.

Now that we have an AST with information about the top-level members in our source files, we can use the tree parser to gather this information and make it available for the dropdown bars. For now, the MyC language doesn’t support user types like structs, enums, or classes, so we’re stuck with listing the members in the file.

Continue Reading »

Posted in Programming, Tutorials by: 280Z28
2 Comments

18 Oct

ManagedMyC: Intro to building an AST

This is part 3 of [many?] posts about creating an ANTLR-based language service for Visual Studio.

Sure a scanner and parser are cool, and syntax highlighting is nice. But the real power in the Visual Studio language services comes in their IntelliSense abilities, and supporting those effectively requires building and processing an AST. In this section, I’ll show how to integrate the ANTLR automatic AST features, including a tree parser, into the ManagedMyC language service. Among other things, I’ll assume the reader is already familiar with ANTLR syntax for parsers, rewrites, and tree parsers.

There are plenty of other places to learn about those separately; my goal is to show how to start incorporating the existing knowledge into a usable language service. This article only discusses adding the tree grammar to your language service and using it to process a bare-bones tree created in the parser. For this article, there are no new UI/language service features supported. In the next article, I’ll show how to use the tree parser output implement a solid TypeAndMemberDropdownBars implementation.

Continue Reading »

Posted in Programming, Tutorials by: 280Z28
No Comments

17 Oct

ManagedMyC: Code folding for functions

This is part 2 of [many?] posts about creating an ANTLR-based language service for Visual Studio.

Since this is a near-trivial feature to add based on the code in my previous post, I’ll go ahead and get it in tonight. We want to fold from the opening { to the closing } of a function, so the first thing to do is find that in the grammar.

declaration_
    :   class1? type? IDENTIFIER paren_params block
    |   simple_declaration
    ;

Continue Reading »

Posted in Programming, Tutorials by: 280Z28
No Comments

16 Oct

Custom Visual Studio language services: ManagedMyC meets ANTLR

As some of you know (ok probably not many of you), I’m the author behind Pixel Mine nFringe, a custom language service framework that we used to provide UnrealScript editing & debugging features in Visual Studio 2005 and 2008. To date, I’ve written 2 full language services with it (UnrealScript and Antlr v3) and toyed with several others (INI files, C/C++, StringTemplate, and a scripting language used in another game). Several people have asked how to get started on a language service using ANTLR grammars for the backend features.

Just to get started, I’ve made a near direct port of the ManagedMyC sample from the Visual Studio SDK, which uses MPLEX/MPPG, to one that uses ANTLR. The most important thing to note at this point: many parts of this sample are inefficient, clumsy, and/or just done the wrong way. None of the features from earlier posts here are implemented in this sample [yet]. Over the next several weeks, I plan to make blog entries covering individual tasks required to make ManagedMyC a solid example of how someone could make a custom language service.

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Posted in Programming, Tutorials by: 280Z28
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07 Oct

Custom Visual Studio language services: Tracking recently used items in autocompletion lists

The C# language service has the great feature of remembering recently used items in the completion lists (auto-complete, complete word, member select, etc.). You can add a similar ability to your language service by deriving your Declarations-derived class from MruDeclarations instead of Declarations. Continue Reading »

Posted in Programming, Tutorials by: 280Z28
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07 Oct

Custom Visual Studio language services: Advanced commenting features

The default line/block commenting/uncommenting implementation in the Managed Package Framework is … well, lacking. When line comments are available, it always uses them, and it always inserts the comments at the beginning of the line. I came up with a better (IMO of course) set of rules to determine whether block comments or line comments should be used. Continue Reading »

Posted in Programming, Tutorials by: 280Z28
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