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V25.1
  • How to: Convert a Static URI to a Hyperlink

    • 3 minutes to read

    RichEditControl detects a hyperlink automatically when a user enters a URI. Use the approach described below to convert static URIs to hyperlinks in a loaded document.

    Call the SubDocument.StartSearch(Regex) method within the RichEditControl.DocumentLoaded event handler to find all URIs in a loaded document. If the found text is not a hyperlink (i.e., its range cannot be found in the HyperlinkCollection), call the HyperlinkCollection.Create(DocumentRange) method convert the text range to a hyperlink.

    result

    using DevExpress.XtraRichEdit;
    using DevExpress.XtraRichEdit.API.Native;
    using System;
    using System.Text.RegularExpressions;
    
    public partial class Form1 : Form
    {
      // A regular expression to find a static URI
      private static Regex urlRegex =
          new Regex(@"(?:[a-z][\w-]+:(?:/{1,3}([^./]*:[^./]*@){0,1})|www\d{0,3}[.]|ftp[.]|[a-z0-9.\-]+[.][a-z]{2,4}/)(?:[^\s()<>]+|\([^\s<>]*\))+(?:\([^\s<>]*\)|[^\s`!()\[\]{};:'"".,<>?«»“”‘’])",
    RegexOptions.IgnoreCase, TimeSpan.FromMilliseconds(250));
    
    public Form1()
    {
        richEditControl1.DocumentLoaded += WordProcessor_DocumentLoaded;
        // Load a document
        richEditControl1.LoadDocument("Documents//test.docx");
    }
    
    private void richEditControl1_DocumentLoaded(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        // Convert text to hyperlinks in a loaded document
        CreateHyperlinks();
    }
    
      private void CreateHyperlinks()
      {
        Document document = richEditControl1.Document;
    
        // Start the document update
        document.BeginUpdate();
        IRegexSearchResult result;
    
        // Search for URIs
        result = document.StartSearch(urlRegex);
    
        // Iterate search results
        while (IsValidUri(result))
        {
            DocumentRange wordRange = result.CurrentResult;
    
            // If the search result is not a hyperlink, convert 
            // the range to a hyperlink
            if (!RangeHasHyperlink(wordRange))
            {
                Hyperlink hyperlink = document.Hyperlinks.Create(wordRange);
                // Use the found URI as the hyperlink address
                hyperlink.NavigateUri = document.GetText(hyperlink.Range);
            }
        }
        // Finalize the update
        document.EndUpdate();
      }
    
      private bool RangeHasHyperlink(DocumentRange documentRange)
      {
          // Check whether the search result is already a hyperlink
          foreach (Hyperlink h in richEditControl1.Document.Hyperlinks)
          {
              if (documentRange.Contains(h.Range.Start))
                  return true;
          }
    
          return false;
      }
    
      // Make sure that the application won't crash if the
      // pattern-matching method execution exceeds its time-out interval 
      static bool IsValidUri(IRegexSearchResult result)
      {
         try
         {
            return result.FindNext();
         }
         catch (RegexMatchTimeoutException)
         {
            return false;
         }
      }
    }