Model of a Language Service

  • Article

A language service defines the elements and features for a specific language, and is used to provide the editor with information specific to that language. For example, the editor needs to know the elements and keywords of the language in order to support syntax coloring.

The language service works closely with the text buffer managed by the editor and the view that contains the editor. The Microsoft IntelliSense Quick Info option is an example of a feature provided by a language service.

A Minimal Language Service

The most basic language service contains the following two objects:

  • The language service implements the IVsLanguageInfo interface. A language service has information about the language, including its name, file name extensions, code window manager, and colorizer.

  • The colorizer implements the IVsColorizer interface.

The following conceptual drawing shows a model of a basic language service.

Basic language service model

Language Service Model graphic

The document window hosts the document view of the editor, in this case the Visual Studio core editor. The document view and the text buffer are owned by the editor. These objects work with Visual Studio through a specialized document window called a code window. The code window is contained in an IVsWindowFrame object that is created and controlled by the IDE.

When a file with a given extension is loaded, the editor locates the language service associated with that extension and passes to it the code window by calling the GetCodeWindowManager method. The language service returns a code window manager, which implements the IVsCodeWindowManager interface.

The following table provides an overview of the objects in the model.

Component

Object

Function

Text buffer

VsTextBuffer

A Unicode read/write text stream. It is possible for text to use other encodings.

Code window

VsCodeWindow

A document window that contains one or more text views. When Visual Studio is in multiple-document interface (MDI) mode, the code window is an MDI child.

Text view

VsTextView

A window that lets the user navigate and view text by using the keyboard and mouse. A text view appears to the user as an editor. You can use text views in ordinary editor windows, the Output window, and the Immediate window. Additionally, you can configure one or more text views within a code window.

Text manager

Managed by the SVsTextManager service, from which you obtain an IVsTextManager pointer

A component that maintains common information shared by all the components described previously.

Language service

Implementation dependent; implements IVsLanguageInfo

An object that provides the editor with language-specific information such as syntax highlighting, statement completion, and brace matching.

See Also

Concepts

Document Data and Document View Objects

Change History

Date

History

Reason

July 2008

Rewrote and refactored project.

Content bug fix.