Is there a line length limit in Notepad++?

[Stephen Mann]

I am using Notepad++ to save my Node-Red flows, and one of them is a bit over 63kb. It looks complete on the screen, but I am wondering if I’ve exceeded the spec for the length of a single line?

[Alan Kilborn]

@Stephen-Mann

There’s an over-a-decade-old post here concerning this, where a poster hinted that the limit for a single line might be 64KB. So at 63KB, you might be OK.

I think this is going to be more of a Scintilla limit rather than a Notepad++ limit. Some quick searching did not prove helpful in this direction…

It certainly would have been nice to find some info about this here , but sadly that is not the case.

I’m sure @PeterJones is right now creating test files with various line lengths and will report back findings soon. Thanks Peter. :)

[Meta Chuh]

welcome to the notepad++ community, @Stephen-Mann

i did not experience any issues with long lines of multiple mb length on recent versions of notepad++, like 7.6.6.

so far it appears, that the document handling does not differentiate, whether a line break is present or not, except a slowdown if such lines are wrapped.

a good test file is https://code.jquery.com/jquery-3.4.0.min.js which is 87kb in one line plus header line and one trailing empty line.

[Ekopalypse]

@Stephen-Mann

as @Meta-Chuh already said, it shouldn’t be a problem.
I too did once a test with 10 000 000 chars within a line and it worked but the performance is noticeable decreasing.
Up to ~1 000 000 chars it was ok, more or less.

[Stephen Mann]

Thanks for the replies. I switched from Textpad about a year ago precisely because my text was limited to 64k. But I miss the block copy functions.

[Alan Kilborn]

@Stephen-Mann said:

I miss the block copy functions.

Do elaborate on what you mean. Perhaps Notepad++ does have the functionality you want.

[Meta Chuh]

@Stephen-Mann

if you mean select a block and copy/paste it somewhere, like seen at the screencast below:
hold the alt key while selecting a text with your mouse, then copy it with ctrl+c and paste it where you need it.

best regards.

[PeterJones]

@Alan-Kilborn said:

I’m sure @PeterJones is right now creating test files with various line lengths and will report back findings soon. Thanks Peter. :)

Sorry. Earning my paycheck got in the way. Meta and Eko appear to have handled the long-line-okay confirmation without me. :-)

[Stephen Mann]

@Meta-Chuh that is cool. I could not find that in the online instructions.
It’s not quite the same as the Textpad Block Mode, but I can get used to it.

One benefit of notepad++ that I didn’t anticipate is the formatting for my C programs complete with block collapse/expand. It there a way to auto-indent?

@Alan-Kilborn said:

@Stephen-Mann said:

I miss the block copy functions.

Do elaborate on what you mean. Perhaps Notepad++ does have the functionality you want.

The more I experiment the alt-drag block select that Meta Chu pointed me to, the more I like it.

[Alan Kilborn]

@Stephen-Mann said:

a way to auto-indent?

Yes, there is an auto-indent checkbox in the Preferences.