17.4 Markers and Extents

Among the things associated with a buffer are things that are logically attached to certain buffer positions. This can be used to keep track of a buffer position when text is inserted and deleted, so that it remains at the same spot relative to the text around it; to assign properties to particular sections of text; etc. There are two such objects that are useful in this regard: they are markers and extents.

A marker is simply a flag placed at a particular buffer position, which is moved around as text is inserted and deleted. Markers are used for all sorts of purposes, such as the mark that is the other end of textual regions to be cut, copied, etc.

An extent is similar to two markers plus some associated properties, and is used to keep track of regions in a buffer as text is inserted and deleted, and to add properties (e.g. fonts) to particular regions of text. The external interface of extents is explained elsewhere.

The important thing here is that markers and extents simply contain buffer positions in them as integers, and every time text is inserted or deleted, these positions must be updated. In order to minimize the amount of shuffling that needs to be done, the positions in markers and extents (there’s one per marker, two per extent) are stored in Meminds. This means that they only need to be moved when the text is physically moved in memory; since the gap structure tries to minimize this, it also minimizes the number of marker and extent indices that need to be adjusted. Look in insdel.c for the details of how this works.

One other important distinction is that markers are temporary while extents are permanent. This means that markers disappear as soon as there are no more pointers to them, and correspondingly, there is no way to determine what markers are in a buffer if you are just given the buffer. Extents remain in a buffer until they are detached (which could happen as a result of text being deleted) or the buffer is deleted, and primitives do exist to enumerate the extents in a buffer.