How to insert a string on a specific line in a Sublime Text Plugin?

Question

I have the following plugin that puts a time stamp at the top of the document on line 1 but I'd like it to insert the string on a different line, like line 6. At first I thought the insert method was 0 indexed but that doesn't seem to be the case. How would I tell the insert method which line to insert the signature string at?

import sublime, sublime_plugin
import datetime, getpass

class SignatureCommand(sublime_plugin.TextCommand):
    def run(self, edit):
        signature = "[%s]\n" % (datetime.datetime.now().strftime("%A, %B %d %I:%M %p"))
        self.view.insert(edit, 0, signature)

Thanks for your help :)

Update: thanks to Enteleform for the wonderful answer, I added a line_num variable for added clarity :)

import sublime, sublime_plugin
import datetime, getpass

class SignatureOnSpecificLineCommand(sublime_plugin.TextCommand):
    def run(self, edit):
        line_num = 6 # line number that signature will go on
        signature = "[%s]\n" % (datetime.datetime.now().strftime("%A, %B %d %I:%M %p"))
        line6_column0 = self.view.text_point(line_num - 1, 0)
        self.view.insert(edit, line6_column0, signature)

Enteleform · Accepted Answer · 2016-04-23 08:42:09Z

3

view.insert() takes a point as it's location argument.

Points are essentially sequential character positions within a document.

For example, in the following document:

Hello
World

a caret at the end of World would be at point 11

5 characters in Hello
1 NewLine character after Hello
5 characters in World

In order to calculate the point of a particular row & column, use:

view.text_point(row, column)

Example:

import sublime, sublime_plugin
import datetime, getpass

class SignatureCommand(sublime_plugin.TextCommand):
    def run(self, edit):
        signature = "[%s]\n" % (datetime.datetime.now().strftime("%A, %B %d %I:%M %p"))
        line = 6
        point = self.view.text_point(line - 1, 0)
        self.view.insert(edit, point, signature)

Note:

rows start at 0 and thus are offset from the displayed lines in SublimeText by -1, which is why I included line - 1 in view.text_point()

edited Apr 23, 2016 at 8:42

answered Apr 23, 2016 at 7:17

Enteleform

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2 Comments

mbigras Over a year ago

Cool! Thanks so much :) this was exactly what I was looking for. I also went ahead and added a line_num variable that can be adjusted later.

Enteleform Over a year ago

@mbigras : Good call, I updated the answer to reflect that since it offers improved usability.

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