The gap buffer takes advantage of localization of edits to improve inserting and modifying text. This is practically an improved version of the char buffer. Gap BufferĪ gap buffer is essentially a snapshot of the current gap between the text based on the cursors location. The additiona features would be easy to implement.Īdvantages: Extremely easy to implement features and can minimize memory.ĭisadvantages: Performance gets substanially worse as the file gets larger. Deleting would be to simply remove that character in the buffer and perhaps shift the array eventually. Insert at a specific location would simply be shifting the chars over and inserting the text at that location. String data type is mentioned as the underlying data storage is a char buffer. This is one of the more simpler and straightforward approach.
It's important to note that text editors will often use a few data structures to implement different functionalities. Data Structuresįunctional data structures will only be briefly included at the end Text editors in the past or that are currently being used have used these data structures listed down below. Vert important There is no clear-cut solution as text editors will all vary in what data structures are used. It primarily based on what you want your text editor to be able to do. There are always tradeoffs when it comes to data structures as you have to consider the difficulty of implementation for the performance and memory tradeoffs.
The bare backbones of a text editor heavily relies on the data structures you decide to use for your operations. Perhaps you want a text editor that minimizes memory usage while still performs adequately enough. Take for instance you want a text editor to handle small files and fixed lengths of lines. Perhaps you want a specialized text editor rather than a general purpose one as this will make a significant impact on designing and implementing a text editor. It's important to consider your target audience (users) and what functionalities that you want your text editor to have. Text editors can be somewhat simple or rather complex depending on the design and implementation. Additonal features that are practically required to even compete with other text editors are: find and replace, copy/cut and paste, text formatting, sentence highlighting, and etc. As mentioned before, the major functionalities of text editors are: inserting, deleting, and viewing text. Text editors deal with manipulating text and provide features to enhance the experience. Text editors have evolved over time to become faster and provide more features than their competitors. Most of us have interacted or heard of text editors before such as Atom, Vim, Visual Studio Code, and so on. They are essential to the world today as lots of people often try to open a text file and view the content. A text editor is a program that allows the user to open, view, and edit plain text files (files containing only text).