Python Script plugin: script to tell the cursor to highlight the result and everything before it up to ">"

[.jean luc borla]

@PeterJones

Thanks,

I have tried but there is an error

File “<console>”, line 1
z = editor.findText(FINDOPTION.REGEXP, 0, editor.getLength(), r’ (?s)>.*585543’) if Z is not None: editor.setSel(*z)
^
SyntaxError: invalid syntax

[.jean luc borla]

@Alan-Kilborn

I tried but there is an error:

File “<console>”, line 1
z = editor.findText(FINDOPTION.REGEXP, 0, editor.getLength(), r’ (?s)>.*585543’) if Z is not None: editor.setSel(*z)
^
SyntaxError: invalid syntax

[PeterJones]

@jean-luc-borla said,

SyntaxError: invalid syntax

You put both commands on the same line. Python (and thus the PythonScript plugin) doesn’t work that way.

z = editor.findText(FINDOPTION.REGEXP, 0, editor.getLength(), r'(?s)>.*585543')
if z is not None: editor.setSel(*z)

This works. Well, mostly. The regex is too greedy.

Change it to be less greedy:

z = editor.findText(FINDOPTION.REGEXP, 0, editor.getLength(), r'(?s)>.*?585543')
if z is not None: editor.setSel(*z)

[Alan Kilborn]

My response was going to be: “We can’t teach basic Python here”

[4SHAKEN]

@PeterJones

Hello!
This thread has been very helpful and got me out of a rut I was in, so thank you very much!

How would you determine how many “matches” are in z? I like to output it to console as shown below…

console.write('Searching for matches...\n')
z = editor.findText(FINDOPTION.REGEXP, 0, editor.getLength(), my_search_variable)
if z is not None:
    editor.gotoLine(editor.lineFromPosition(z[0])+20)    
    editor.setSel(*z)
    console.write('Search Completed - found XXX matches which are highlighted\n')
else:
    console.write('Search Completed.  No matches found.\n')

—

moderator added code markdown around text; please don’t forget to use the </> button to mark example text as “code” so that characters don’t get changed by the forum

[Alan Kilborn]

@4SHAKEN said :

z = editor.findText(FINDOPTION.REGEXP, 0, editor.getLength(), my_search_variable)

How would you determine how many “matches” are in z?

Um…well, one, at most. The documentation for editor.findText() in PythonScript is lacking, unfortunately; here’s what I’ve discovered about it over time:

Here’s how to interpret the return value from z = editor.findText(...):

Result	Meaning
z is None	no match was found
z is a 2-tuple where z[0] == -2	regular expression in my_search_variable is either invalid or the regex engine had a failure in conducting the search
z is a 2-tuple where z[0] != -2	one match, at the position range indicated by the tuple, i.e., at positions z[0] through z[1] in the document

---

Bonus (because it came to mind based on what you’re asking about, and what I’ve said above):

If you need to validate the regex in my_search_variable, here’s a (Python3) function that will do that for you:

def regex_is_valid(test_regex):
    return (tup2 := editor.findText(FINDOPTION.REGEXP, 0, 0, test_regex)) is None or tup2[0] != -2

---

It really seems like you need to use editor.research() rather than editor.findText(), if you want to find multiple matches with a single call to a searching function, e.g.:

matches = []
editor.research(search_variable, lambda m: matches.append(m.span(0)))
num_matches = len(matches)

[4SHAKEN]

@Alan-Kilborn thanks for the suggestion on editor.research! I’m now able to get num of matches. I haven’t found a replacement for editor.setSel (using match) so I’m having to do the search twice. I’m sure its a rookie mistake on my part.

console.write('Searching for matches...\n')
matches = []
editor.research(my_search_variable, lambda m: matches.append(m.span(0)))
num_matches = len(matches)
z = editor.findText(FINDOPTION.REGEXP, 0, editor.getLength(), mrn_acc_search)
if matches:
    editor.gotoLine(editor.lineFromPosition(matches[0][0])+20)
    editor.setSel(*z)
    console.write('Search Completed - found ' + str(num_matches) + ' which are highlighted.\n')
if not matches:
    console.write('Search Completed.  No matches found.\n')

—

moderator added code markdown around text; please don’t forget to use the </> button to mark example text as “code” so that characters don’t get changed by the forum

[Alan Kilborn]

@4SHAKEN said:

I haven’t found a replacement for editor.setSel (using match)

Note, the following is untested, but it or something very similar, should work, if I’m understanding what you want:

editor.setSel(*matches[0])

[4SHAKEN]

@Alan-Kilborn Confirmed it works, thanks so much! My updated code is below in case it helps others.

console.write('Searching for matches...\n')
matches = []
editor.research(my_search_variable, lambda m: matches.append(m.span(0)))
num_matches = len(matches)
if matches:
    editor.gotoLine(editor.lineFromPosition(matches[0][0])+20)
    editor.setSel(*matches[0])
    console.write('Search completed at ' + datetime.now().strftime('%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S') + '. ' + str(num_matches) + ' matches found.\n')
if not matches:
    console.write('Search completed at ' + datetime.now().strftime('%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S') + '.  No matches found.\n')

—

moderator added code markdown around text; please don’t forget to use the </> button to mark example text as “code” so that characters don’t get changed by the forum

[Mark Olson]

@4SHAKEN
In the future you should wrap your code snippets in ``` blocks.

if foo:
    blah = -3
    return bar() # notice syntax highlighting, indentation preserved
else:
    return zut()