How to get Xbase++ functions defined over multiple lines displayed by IntelliTips?

satmax · Aug 25, 2014#12014-08-25T19:26+00:00

Hi,

I use Xbase++ and I have a lot of function definitions like this:

FUNCTION myFunc(cString,x1,x2,x3,x4,x5,x6,x7,x8,x9,x10,x11,x12,x13,x14, ;
                x15,x16,x17,x18,x19,x20,x21,x22,x23,x24,x25,x26,x27,x28, ;
                xxx)

With ; I can split long lines.

IntelliTips shows me only the first line.

How can I get all lines in IntelliTips?

IntelliTips can show this as a single line, but the data from all (3) lines.

I use a xbase++.uew wordfile, here is a sample:

Code: Select all

/L15"Xbase++" Line Comment = // Nocase Line Comment Alt = * Block Comment On = /* Block Comment Off = */ String Chars = "'[] DisableMLS Nocase File Extensions = CH XPJ ARC PRG
/TGBegin "Function"
/TGFindStr = "%[CLASS]+CLASS"
/TGFindStr = "%[METHOD]+METHOD"
/TGFindStr = "%[PROCEDURE]+PROCEDURE"
/TGFindStr = "%[FUNCTION]+FUNCTION"
/TGFindStr = "%[STATIC FUNCTION]+STATIC FUNCTION"
/TGEnd
/TGBegin "ToDo"
/TGFindStr = "%[^t]++//TODO:[^t]++^(*^)$"
/TGFindBStart = "{"
/TGFindBEnd = "}"
/TGEnd
/Delimiters = ~!@%^&*()-+=|\/{}[]:;"'<> ,	.?
/Indent Strings = "begin" "case" "do case" "do while" "else" "elseif" "exported:" "for" "if" "otherwise" "protected:" "recover" "while"
/Unindent Strings = "case" "else" "end" "endcase" "endclass" "enddo" "endif" "next" "otherwise" "recover"
/Ignore Strings SOL = "*" "/*" "*/" "#"
/Open Brace Strings =  "{" "(" "["
/Close Brace Strings = "}" ")" "]"
/Open Fold Strings = "{" "class" "method" "procedure" "function" "if" "elseif" "else" "do while" 
/Close Fold Strings = "}" "endclass" "return" "elseif" "else" "endif" "enddo" "end"

Thanks in advance
Markus

Aug 27, 2014#22014-08-27T07:12+00:00

Hi Mofi!

At first, many thanks to Mofi for all previous replies (already deleted)!

Your last wordfile worked even better, but the IntelliTips shows only the first line, see attachment.

At this time I prefer the hierarchical function list.

Mofi wrote:Classes, Methods and Functions and inside Functions a subgroup Parameters listing the parameters of the function whereas the top level groups list only name of class, method and function.

It's looks like perfect for me.

Here is now the attachment:

Mofi · Aug 31, 2014#32014-08-31T19:29+00:00

Hi!

IntelliTips uses built-in parser of UEStudio and not the strings found by the regular expressions in the wordfiles as far as I know. There are two definitions in some wordfiles for the internal symbol parser of UEStudio, /Member String = and /Variable String =. But there is no public documentation for those two definitions. I will contact IDM support to get more information about how to customize integrated parser to get better support for IntelliTips features like function tips for Xbase++.

In my opinion the Perl regular expressions for function list for Xbase++ still need some improvements (to fulfill my quality standards). I have the provided CHM file for Xbase++ now and will study it to find better regular expressions for an even better function list.

I spent some hours to improve the wordfile for Xbase++ and here are the results of my work.

Duplicate words

I checked the wordfile for duplicate words, see the ultimate syntax highlighting tools.

I removed all duplicate words except the following:

Code: Select all

File -> in /C1
file -> in /C3

Memory -> in /C1
memory -> in /C3

Select -> in /C1
select -> in /C3

Set -> in /C1
set -> in /C3

SetPos -> in /C1
setPos -> in /C2

Type -> in /C1
type -> in /C3

I kept them in case of using auto-correction feature for this not case-sensitive language.

I made also changes on list of delimiter characters like changing sort order and removing the dot to make .and. .f. .not. .or. .t. valid "words" in the wordfile and get better syntax highlighting for floating point numbers.

Additional color groups

The wordfiles in the RAR archive contain now 10 color groups which is supported since UE v17.00 and UES v11.00. Previous versions support only up to 8 color groups. In *_old*.uew the number of color groups is just 8 because color group 9 and 10 and the marker character string definition are removed from those wordfiles.

Color group 8 is for parentheses and braces (and square brackets if marker characters not used).

Color group 9 is for strings in brackets (strings and elements of an array).

Color group 10 is for single quoted strings which can be highlighted now with a different color to double quoted strings. That could be useful to see easily on color of a string if ' or " can be used inside the string.

Asterisk used as line comment

Alaska Xbase++ coding guidelines describe mainly three kinds of comments: two line comments and one block comment.
(The other 2 kinds of comments supported for compatibility reasons should not be used anymore and are therefore ignored here.)

The line comment // and the block comment /*...*/ are no problem for syntax highlighting.

The second line comment type with just * as beginning is problematic for syntax highlighting as an asterisk is used also as multiply operator in formulas. I could not find a detailed explanation on when * is interpreted as line comment starting character and when as multiply operator. I suppose that * is interpreted as line comment beginning if it is the first non whitespace character on a line.

I added following to first line of the wordfiles for Xbase++ syntax highlighting to avoid a wrong interpretation of * as beginning of a line comment when used as multiply operator as much as possible:

Code: Select all

Line Comment Valid Columns Alt = [1-9] Line Comment Preceding Chars Alt = [~!-~]

The character * is interpreted as beginning of a line comment only if

found by UE/UES within the first 9 columns of a line (9 because of a preceding tab with standard width of 8), and
the preceding character is not any character in ASCII table from question mark to tilde which means practically only whitespaces are allowed left of * being interpreted as line comment beginning.

It is of course possible to modify or completely remove one or both limitations.

Flat versus hierarchical (grouped, tree-style) function list

UltraEdit and UEStudio use case-insensitive regular expression searches to find strings for being displayed in the function list view. That makes it more or less easy to customize what is displayed in the function list for a text or code source file.

The UltraEdit and since UE v13.10 and UES v6.30 also more powerful Perl regular expression engine can be used for searching for strings listed in the function list. Note: The Perl regexp engine can be used for search strings in a hierarchical (tree-style) function list up to UE v19.00 and UES v13.00 only for search strings in top level. UE v19.10 or UES v13.10 is required to use Perl regexp also for second, third, ... level. The legacy Unix regexp engine can't be used for function string expressions.

The users have the choice between a flat function list and a tree-style function list since UE v16.00 and UES v10.00. It is possible to toggle via function list context menu item Flat List between flat and grouped function list.

Most of the user contributed wordfiles are pretty old and contain therefore function list regexp strings in old definition style using UltraEdit regexp engine which are often very simple and are only for a flat function list. And that's okay for many kind of text files.

But for many programming languages a hierarchical function list is often better. But for a tree-style function list a different and more enhanced list of regular expressions are needed in the wordfile. And for programming languages it is often necessary to use the much more powerful Perl regexp engine which gives even the possibility to override case-insensitivity in the regexp search string and make a search case-sensitive.

The usage of the Perl regexp engine for function string searches has one more big advantage over UltraEdit regexp searches: It is possible to define more than one capturing group. With the UltraEdit regexp engine just one string in entire found string can be tagged for being displayed in the function list. But with the Perl regexp engine several capturing groups can be defined in the search expression and the strings found by the expressions in each capturing group are concatenated with a single space for display in the function list view. This gives users more control over what and how the strings are displayed in the function list view.

A hierarchical function list has the advantage that the function list can be quite small in width, but nevertheless display everything of interest while for a flat list the user has to decide to get only basic information displayed in the function list or see full information only when hovering mouse pointer over a string in the function list if not using a wide function list view.

The attached RAR archive contains several wordfiles. The only differences between those wordfiles are the function strings. Everything else is identical in all files.

The *_old*.uew files are for UE < 16.00 and UES < v10.00 using Perl regexp search strings in old definition style which are not tested by me with such an old version of UE/UES.

The *_flat*.uew files are for UE >= 16.00 and UES >= v10.00 using Perl regexp search string in new definition style for a flat list tested only with UE v21.20.0.1014 and UES v14.30.0.1008.

And last Xbase++.uew is for a hierarchical function list view working only for UE >= 19.10 and UES >= 13.10 (most likely) tested also only with UE v21.20.0.1014 and UES v14.30.0.1008.

A small readme.txt also included in the RAR archive describes the differences for the flat list variants.

I was very tricky to find regular expressions for finding parameters of functions, methods, ... as it is possible to define them also without parentheses. Therefore it was necessary to avoid finding strings in next parentheses below the function, method, ... definition line/block if and only if a function, method, procedure is without parameters and () is also omitted in definition. But I had success as it can be seen on using Xbase++.uew.

What is not correct listed in function list at the moment is a multi-line definition of a function, procedure, etc. with a line or block comment on each line of the definition. I have not seen such blocks in sample source file nor in help and therefore have not spent time on how to define the regular expressions to allow comments within a definition block and filter them out for function list display. So I can suggest only writing explanations for each parameter of a function, procedure, etc. above or below the block which defines the function, method, procedure, ...

Please let me know if anything is not good displayed in function list, or something from source code file is missing in function list, or something is included in function list which should not be included there, and I will look into it and try to improve the expressions accordingly.

IntelliTip function tip

I'm in contact with IDM support regarding function tip. The integrated symbol parser finds the functions in Xbase++ source files and for users of UEStudio it is not possible to customize the parsing mechanism. I could see that today on looking on the file in hidden directory %APPDATA%\IDMComp\UEStudio\cache created by UEStudio for the project with the Xbase++ source file. The source code of the parser itself must be improved for Xbase++ parsing.

Improved wordfile(s)

Jun 27, 2015#42015-06-27T17:14+00:00

Markus as Xbase++ expert and I as C/C++ code writer worked together in the last months on improving symbol parser of UEStudio for Xbase++ source files.

As a result of our work UEStudio v15.20.0.6 released on 2015-06-24 contains a nearly completely rewritten symbol parser for Xbase++ source code files integrated in ues_ctags.exe.

UEStudio v15.20 is published with a new installer based on Setup Factory by Indigo Rose. A previous version of UEStudio must be first uninstalled because of this new installer. The configuration settings usually stored in %APPDATA%\IDMComp\UEStudio are not removed on uninstallation of UEStudio < 15.20.

Updated ues_ctags.exe of UES v15.20 finds in *.prg Xbase++ source files:

all valid defined classes including final, freeze and static classes,
all valid defined methods of classes including inline methods,
all valid defined functions including static functions,
all valid defined procedures including exit, init and static procedures.

The definition of a class, method, function or procedure can span now also over multiple lines using ; at end of a line or one or even more block comments.

The attached RAR file contains the sample file used for developing improved Xbase++ symbol parser and also ues_ctags.exe of UES v15.20. This version of ues_ctags.exe can be used also in UEStudio < 15.20 as the format of the tag files itself was not changed.

In comparison to the wordfile Xbase++.uew being included in the RAR archive in post above, the integrated symbol parser:

finds and parses correct also all NotFoundX functions,
ignores all InvalidX functions in file XbaseFunctionTest.prg,
ignores all classes, methods, functions and procedures in comments.

Not supported by ues_ctags.exe of UES v15.20:

hidden (private in C++) and protected declarations of class methods and
hidden (private in C++), protected and public variables of classes.

Adding support for class variables and visibility attribute of class methods is perhaps done be me in the future.

The function tips feature of UEStudio is with this enhancement much more useful as before for *.prg file as all parameters of a multi-line method, function or procedure like method Box:init or the functions ValidX in sample file XbaseFunctionTest.prg are stored in the tags file and displayed on screen.

A problem is still function tdXget in sample file XbaseFunctionTest.prg. While all 35 parameters of this function are correct parsed and stored in the tags file, the parameters list is too long to fit within UEStudio main window even when UEStudio is maximized on screen except on using a very wide screen with a very high resolution. The function tips feature of UES 15.20 does not support a smart scrolling within the list of function parameters if the entire function tip does not fit within UEStudio main window.

ues_ctags.exe is located in subdirectory GNU in program files directory of UEStudio. After updating this file by upgrading to UEStudio 15.20 (or any later version) or manually replacing this file with updated version in RAR archive, it is advisable for Xbase++ developers to open in UEStudio Advanced - Configuration - IDE - IntelliTips - Parser, click on button Clear Cache and close the configuration dialog with button Cancel. Then the active Xbase++ file should be parsed by using command Reparse active document in the toolbar, or closing/re-opening active Xbase++ project, or exiting and restarting UEStudio.

satmax · Jul 04, 2015#52015-07-04T22:12+00:00

Hi Mofi!

Many thanks for your excellent work! It looks very good for me.

Greetings from Biberbach (lower Austria)