Subclass of [gtk.text_buffer.TextBuffer].

A [gtksource.buffer.Buffer] object is the model for class@View widgets. It extends the [gtk.text_buffer.TextBuffer] class by adding features useful to display and edit source code such as syntax highlighting and bracket matching.

To create a [gtksource.buffer.Buffer] use [gtksource.buffer.Buffer.new_] or [gtksource.buffer.Buffer.newWithLanguage]. The second form is just a convenience function which allows you to initially set a class@Language. You can also directly create a class@View and get its class@Buffer with [gtk.text_view.TextView.getBuffer].

The highlighting is enabled by default, but you can disable it with [gtksource.buffer.Buffer.setHighlightSyntax].

Context Classes:

It is possible to retrieve some information from the syntax highlighting engine. The default context classes that are applied to regions of a [gtksource.buffer.Buffer]:

• comment: the region delimits a comment;
• no-spell-check: the region should not be spell checked;
• path: the region delimits a path to a file;
• string: the region delimits a string.

Custom language definition files can create their own context classes, since the functions like [gtksource.buffer.Buffer.iterHasContextClass] take a string parameter as the context class.

[gtksource.buffer.Buffer] provides an API to access the context classes: [gtksource.buffer.Buffer.iterHasContextClass], [gtksource.buffer.Buffer.getContextClassesAtIter], [gtksource.buffer.Buffer.iterForwardToContextClassToggle] and [gtksource.buffer.Buffer.iterBackwardToContextClassToggle].

And the signal@GtkSource.Buffer::highlight-updated signal permits to be notified when a context class region changes.

Each context class has also an associated [gtk.text_tag.TextTag] with the name gtksourceview:context-classes:<name>. For example to retrieve the [gtk.text_tag.TextTag] for the string context class, one can write:

GtkTextTagTable *tag_table;
GtkTextTag *tag;

tag_table = gtk_text_buffer_get_tag_table (buffer);
tag = gtk_text_tag_table_lookup (tag_table, "gtksourceview:context-classes:string");

The tag must be used for read-only purposes.

Accessing a context class via the associated [gtk.text_tag.TextTag] is less convenient than the [gtksource.buffer.Buffer] API, because:

• The tag doesn't always exist, you need to listen to the

signal@Gtk.TextTagTable::tag-added and signal@Gtk.TextTagTable::tag-removed signals.

• Instead of the signal@GtkSource.Buffer::highlight-updated signal, you can listen

to the signal@Gtk.TextBuffer::apply-tag and signal@Gtk.TextBuffer::remove-tag signals.

A possible use-case for accessing a context class via the associated [gtk.text_tag.TextTag] is to read the region but without adding a hard dependency on the GtkSourceView library (for example for a spell-checking library that wants to read the no-spell-check region).

Fluent builder for [gtksource.buffer.Buffer]