Bug 367229 - [syntax highlighting] Syntax Highlighting for regular expressions
Summary: [syntax highlighting] Syntax Highlighting for regular expressions
Status: ASSIGNED
Alias: None
Product: JDT
Classification: Eclipse Project
Component: Text (show other bugs)
Version: 3.8   Edit
Hardware: All All
: P3 enhancement with 1 vote (vote)
Target Milestone: ---   Edit
Assignee: JDT-Text-Inbox CLA
QA Contact:
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2011-12-20 12:53 EST by Nathan Reynolds CLA
Modified: 2011-12-21 02:38 EST (History)
2 users (show)

See Also:

Attachments
Add an attachment (proposed patch, testcase, etc.)

Note You need to log in before you can comment on or make changes to this bug.
Description Nathan Reynolds CLA 2011-12-20 12:53:27 EST 
Build Identifier: 20110916-0149

Regular expressions are a powerful feature of Java.  They are written in Strings.  The code editor displays the regular expression as any other String.  This makes it difficult to work with regular expressions.

If the String is used in Pattern.compile(), then the code editor can know that it is a regular expression.

The code editor could highlight matching ( ) and [ ].  Backreferences could highlight the matching group.  Quantifiers such as * + ? {} could highlight their targets.

This enhancement would make working with Regular Expressions much easier.

Reproducible: Always