ANTLR Syntax Highlighting DSL in Visual Studio

Question

I have an ANTLR grammar that defines a DSL (domain specific language). This grammar is relatively simple. It is parsing the language and outputting C code to create a very basic translator.

This language is meant to be used in C# application (typed into some sort of control, whether it be RichTextBox or a custom control) and one requirement is to have syntax highlighting for this language. I have scoured the Internet in hopes of finding some sort of information on how to accomplish this, or find a tool to make this a little easier on myself.

After not finding too much information, my best assumption would be that I need to use the ANTLR generated lexer to look at the tokens and color them accordingly. Is this the correct path of action, or is there some other method/tool to provide syntax highlighting for custom domain specific languages? If this is the correct method, how do I go about recognizing specific tokens?

If I left out any important information, please ask! Thanks!

Answer 1

I successfully used AvalonEdit for a similar project of mine. I just created a small editor with the correct syntax highlighting.

It is very easy and quick to get it up and running in your project. You just have to provide it with a simple XML file to document the syntax of your DSL and you will have a colored output out-of-the-box as a WPF control.

It looks like they added completion facilities since I used it, I don't have experience on that part though, but I suspect it is also very well done if the quality is the same as the colouring.

Answer 2

This language is meant to be used in C# application (typed into some sort of control, whether it be RichTextBox or a custom control) and one requirement is to have syntax highlighting for this language.

Consider using Scintilla for your control. It's a text control for IDE-style text editing. Notepad++ uses it for its text control, as does the SciTE IDE from which it originates. I've used it in a small, custom IDE project written in C# using an unofficial .NET-specific version -- I think it was ScintillaNET.

Scintilla supports custom keyword highlighting and also a variety of programmable features like squiggly-line underlining and things like that.

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If you have a control that you'd rather use, I think it's reasonable to use a small ANTLR lexer to produce tokens for you. Each token contains the line number, starting character position, source text, and token type -- everything you'd need to know what to highlight and how. The only hassle would be running the text through the lexer each time the text is changed. There are efficient ways to do that without re-lexing the entire document, but it's still something to keep in mind.