Accessing raw text of TextFlow and performing a search

Question

I am trying to figure out the best way to perform a search
within a TextFlow to locate a specific piece of text (either a word
or set of words).
I have had a hard time figuring out how to actually gain
access to the raw text of the TextFlow that is loaded. Once that is
loaded, I need to be able to search through that text, find the
location of the text, and show that container.
Essentially add search capability to the Pagination example.
The only thing I can think of that seems like it may work
would be to export the TextFlow into an XML file, then perform the
search on the XML file. Once that is done, I would have to figure
out which position in the xml file the text was located, and load
the container with that position....
Surely there is a better way?
Thanks, Tim

Answer 1

I think so - here's how I'd reccomend approaching the
problem.
Given a TextFlow I'd do a getFirstLeaf. That returns a
FlowLeafElement. I'd then look at the FlowLeafElement.text property
to access the text for matching. To advance to the next leaf
element use FlowLeafElement.getNextLeaf.
You'll have to do some book keeping when you find a match to
figure out the absolute position of the beginning of the match.
Next step would be to use
textFlow.flowComposer.findControllerIndexAtPosition to figure out
which container has the matched text.
Adding niceties you could search a paragraph at a time by
taking advantage of the limitElement parameter to getNextLeaf.
After calling getFirstLeaf call getParagraph to find the paragrah
and use that as the limit element. To advance to the next paragraph
use null as the limit element and call getParagraph again for the
new limit element.
Hope that helps.
Richard