This nifty library will allow you to incorporate auto-completion in your latest game/software project without much hassle. It supports the use of a dictionary with both load and save routines, it keeps track of hits and allows to filter the suggestion using a “headroom” parameter.
The “algorithm” used to populate the suggestion list is down to the bare basics, reason being I wanted to keep the library small and simple. In fact some “methods” were not implemented for this very same reason. But please feel free to write a helper lib and I’ll happily add a link towards it.
The 4.50 source:
Structure AUTOCOMPLETE_ENTRY ; This represents each word in the dictionary word.s ; The word length.i ; The length of the word (cached for speed) hits.i ; Amount of hits this word received (see GetSuggestions for more information on this) EndStructure Structure AUTOCOMPLETE DictionaryFileName.s ; Filename for the dictionary, optional. last_input.s ; Handy last input helper last_suggestion.s ; Likewise but it holds the last "best" suggestion, in case you don't want to go through the list. List dictionary.AUTOCOMPLETE_ENTRY() ; Holds complete words or sentences, it is our database. List suggestion.AUTOCOMPLETE_ENTRY() ; This list will be populated with results once GetSuggestion is called. EndStructure Declare.i AutoComplete_LoadDictionary( *this.AUTOCOMPLETE, DictionaryFile.s ) Declare.i AutoComplete_SaveDictionary( *this.AUTOCOMPLETE, DictionaryFile.s = "" ) Procedure.i AutoComplete_Create( DictionaryFile.s = "" ) ; Creates an instance of the AutoComplete library. Define.AUTOCOMPLETE *this = AllocateMemory( SizeOf( AUTOCOMPLETE ) ) If *this InitializeStructure( *this, AUTOCOMPLETE ) If DictionaryFile AutoComplete_LoadDictionary( *this, DictionaryFile ) EndIf ProcedureReturn *this EndIf EndProcedure Procedure.i AutoComplete_Destroy( *this.AUTOCOMPLETE, AutoSave.i = #False ) ; Destroys an instance of the AutoComplete library. If *this If AutoSave AutoComplete_SaveDictionary( *this ) EndIf ClearStructure( *this, AUTOCOMPLETE ) FreeMemory( *this ) EndIf EndProcedure Procedure.s AutoComplete_GetSuggestion( *this.AUTOCOMPLETE, PartialInput.s, Headroom.i = 4 ) ; Generates a suggestion list based on input string. ; The Headroom variable limits how bigger a suggestion can be, compared to the input length. If *this Define.i PartialFindLength = 99999 Define.i PartialInputLength = Len( PartialInput ) If PartialInputLength > 0 ClearList( *this\suggestion() ) ForEach *this\dictionary() If Left( *this\dictionary()\word, PartialInputLength ) = PartialInput If *this\dictionary()\word = PartialInput *this\dictionary()\hits + 1 EndIf If *this\dictionary()\length < PartialFindLength + Headroom PartialFindLength = *this\dictionary()\length If AddElement(*this\suggestion()) *this\suggestion() = *this\dictionary() *this\last_suggestion = *this\suggestion()\word EndIf EndIf EndIf Next SortStructuredList( *this\suggestion(), #PB_Sort_Integer, OffsetOf( AUTOCOMPLETE_ENTRY\hits ), #PB_Sort_Descending ) ProcedureReturn *this\last_suggestion EndIf EndIf EndProcedure Procedure.i AutoComplete_AddWord( *this.AUTOCOMPLETE, Word.s, Hits.i = 0 ) ; Adds a word to the dictionary. If *this If AddElement( *this\dictionary() ) *this\dictionary()\word = Word *this\dictionary()\length = Len(Word) *this\dictionary()\hits = Hits EndIf ProcedureReturn #True EndIf EndProcedure Procedure.i AutoComplete_ClearHits( *this.AUTOCOMPLETE ) ; Clears all word hits from the dictionary. If *this ForEach *this\dictionary() *this\dictionary()\hits = 0 Next ProcedureReturn #True EndIf EndProcedure Procedure.i AutoComplete_LoadDictionary( *this.AUTOCOMPLETE, DictionaryFile.s ) ; Loads a dictionary from a file. If *this If DictionaryFile Define.s sInput, sOutput Define.i Hits = 0 Define.i fp = ReadFile( #PB_Any, DictionaryFile ) If IsFile( fp ) *this\DictionaryFileName = DictionaryFile While Not Eof( fp ) sInput = ReadString( fp ) If FindString( sInput, ",", 1 ) ; If there's a comma in the line, then it means we have to load the hits. sOutput = StringField( sInput, 1, "," ) Hits = Val( StringField( sInput, 2, "," ) ) Else ; Otherwise no hits are present in the dictionary file, assume 0. sOutput = sInput Hits = 0 EndIf AutoComplete_AddWord( *this, sOutput, Hits ) Wend CloseFile( fp ) EndIf EndIf EndIf EndProcedure Procedure.i AutoComplete_SaveDictionary( *this.AUTOCOMPLETE, DictionaryFile.s = "" ) ; Saves the dictionary to a file. If *this If DictionaryFile = "" DictionaryFile = *this\DictionaryFileName EndIf If DictionaryFile Define.s sInput, sOutput Define.i fp = CreateFile( #PB_Any, DictionaryFile ) If IsFile( fp ) ForEach *this\dictionary() sOutput = *this\dictionary()\word sOutput + "," + Str( *this\dictionary()\hits ) WriteStringN( fp, sOutput ) Next CloseFile(fp) EndIf EndIf EndIf EndProcedure
And a quick example:
Notice: The example requires a dictionary, you may download a sample one based on english words by clicking here.
Define.AUTOCOMPLETE *auto = AutoComplete_Create( "english.txt" ) ; load this dictionary for future auto completion assistance. If *auto If OpenConsole() PrintN(" Type part of a word and press enter to view the suggestions" ) Repeat Define.s in = Input() If in If AutoComplete_GetSuggestion( *auto, in, 2 ) ForEach *auto\suggestion() PrintN( *auto\suggestion()\word + " - " + Str( *auto\suggestion()\hits ) ) Next PrintN("") EndIf EndIf Delay(100) Until Inkey() = Chr(27) Or in = "exit" CloseConsole() EndIf AutoComplete_Destroy( *auto, #True ) ; Because we loaded a dictionary, if we pass True as the second parameter, the dictionary will be saved before the instance is destroyed. EndIf
Another good point about this library is that it's 100% cross-platform, so you're not depending on the OS to auto-complete your fields and like I said before, you could easily implement it in your game, etc. A bad point is that it includes no error handling at the moment.
That's it for now, you can download the entire source here. And a sample dictionary here.
Cheers!