Code Assist features try to assist the user during source code editing.
Note
The features currently implemented in EPIC are rudimentary. An option to utilize a user-defined script for code assist suggestions is provided to allow integration of more powerful, external code generation tools.
When you press one of the auto completion characters $ @ %, the editor displays all defined variables in
a list. From the list you can select the variable that should be inserted in the
source code.
The editor tries to display methods available in modules when the auto completion
characters > or : are entered.
Note
Currently, indirect object invocations are not recognized by code assist. This code block will not work:
$smtp = new Net::SMTP; $smtp->[no content assist]
This one will work:
$smtp = Net::SMTP->new(); $smtp->[content assist]
If specified on the Code Assist preferences page, a user-defined Perl script can compute autocompletion suggestions instead of or in addition to EPIC's built-in ones. It is called by EPIC with the following arguments:
- documentPath = workspace-relative path of the edited source file (if available),
- documentOffset = selection start offset in the document/file (or caret position if there is no selection),
- selectionLength = length of selection (0 if there is no selection),
Based on the provided information the script is supposed to generate on standard output a list of autocomplete suggestions or "proposals" which, if not empty, take precedence over EPIC's built-in generation. Each suggestion contains instructions to insert/replace a contiguous piece of text at a given position in the source document and move the caret to a new position. A suggestion is formatted as a comma-separated list of "replacementOffset,replacementLength,newCursorPosition,replacementString":
- replacementOffset = where to insert the proposal in the file (typically = documentOffset),
- replacementLength = how many characters to remove at this offset (typically 0, i.e. just insert),
- newCursorPosition = where to place caret after the insertion, relative to replacementOffset (typically = replacementString.length()),
- replacementString = what to insert at replacementOffset
Suggestions are separated from each other by the special <|proposal|> token.
Refer to the source code of org.epic.perleditor.editors.util.ExternalAutoComplete for further implementation details.