Question

I found a fun autocomplete widget class on the internet–which I’ve stripped down to the essentials–to make my boring python 2.7 tkinter entry windows autocomplete entry windows.

from Tkinter import*

class AutocompleteEntry(Entry):

    def set_completion_list(self, completion_list):
        self._completion_list = completion_list
        self._hits = []
        self._hit_index = 0
        self.position = 0
        self.bind('<KeyRelease>', self.handle_keyrelease)               

    def autocomplete(self, delta=0):
        if delta:
            self.delete(self.position,END)
        else:
            self.position = len(self.get())
        _hits = []
        for element in self._completion_list:
            if element.startswith(self.get().lower()):
                _hits.append(element)
                if _hits != self._hits:
                        self._hit_index = 0
                        self._hits=_hits
        if _hits == self._hits and self._hits:
                self._hit_index = (self._hit_index + delta) % len(self._hits)
        if self._hits:
                self.delete(0,END)
                self.insert(0,self._hits[self._hit_index])
                self.select_range(self.position,END)

    def handle_keyrelease(self, event):
        if len(event.keysym)== 1:
            self.autocomplete()

class Code:
    def __init__(self, parent):
        self.myParent = parent
        self.main_frame = Frame(parent, background="light blue")
        self.main_frame.pack(expand=YES, fill=BOTH)

        test_list = ('test', 'type', 'true', 'tree')

        self.enter = AutocompleteEntry(self.main_frame, width=30)
        self.enter.set_completion_list(test_list)
        self.enter.pack(side=LEFT, expand=NO)



root = Tk()
code = Code(root)
root.mainloop() 

Works great, with one annoying caveat: seems the list which the autocomplete references is bias towards lowercase words. This snippet works:

test_list = ('test', 'type', 'true', 'tree')

Change the list to uppercase and the autocomplete function vanishes.

test_list = ('Test', 'Type', 'True', 'Tree')

I’ve gone back to the original internet code http://tkinter.unpythonic.net/wiki/AutocompleteEntry and it shows the same flaw. How do I alter the autocomplete widget code to eliminate this bias, allowing it to accept lists with upper and lowercase words?

Answer 1

Try removing the

.lower()

from

if element.startswith(self.get().lower()):

or to make the match case-insensitive:

if element.lower().startswith(self.get().lower()):

which will convert your entry string into lowercase and then the list values to lowercase as well so that a match will be made anytime the same letters are entered even if the case is off.