How can I find a substring and highlight it in QTextEdit?

Question

I have a QTextEdit window that shows the content of a file. I would like to be able to find all matches inside the text using a regex and highlight them either by making th

Answer 1

Here is a sample of how can you highlight text in a QTextEdit:

#!/usr/bin/env python
#-*- coding:utf-8 -*-

from PyQt4.QtGui import *
from PyQt4.QtCore import *

class highlightSyntax(QSyntaxHighlighter):
    def __init__(self, listKeywords, parent=None):
        super(highlightSyntax, self).__init__(parent)
        brush   = QBrush(Qt.darkBlue, Qt.SolidPattern)
        keyword = QTextCharFormat()
        keyword.setForeground(brush)
        keyword.setFontWeight(QFont.Bold)

        self.highlightingRules = [  highlightRule(QRegExp("\\b" + key + "\\b"), keyword)
                                    for key in listKeywords
                                    ]

    def highlightBlock(self, text):
        for rule in self.highlightingRules:
            expression = QRegExp(rule.pattern)
            index      = expression.indexIn(text)

            while index >= 0:
              length = expression.matchedLength()
              self.setFormat(index, length, rule.format)
              index = text.indexOf(expression, index + length)

        self.setCurrentBlockState(0)  

class highlightRule(object):
    def __init__(self, pattern, format):
        self.pattern = pattern
        self.format  = format

class highlightTextEdit(QTextEdit):
    def __init__(self, fileInput, listKeywords, parent=None):
        super(highlightTextEdit, self).__init__(parent)
        highlightSyntax(QStringList(listKeywords), self)

        with open(fileInput, "r") as fInput:
            self.setPlainText(fInput.read())        

if __name__ == "__main__":
    import  sys

    app = QApplication(sys.argv)
    main = highlightTextEdit("/path/to/file", ["foo", "bar", "baz"])
    main.show()
    sys.exit(app.exec_())