Get TreeView Node By Text(TreeView上查找)

How to locate (search and select) a TreeView node given by node text using Delphi. 

Many times while developing Delphi applications using the TreeView component I've bumped into a situation to need to search for a tree node given by only the text of the node.

In this article I'll present you with one quick and easy function to get TreeView node by text.    

A Delphi example

First, we'll build a simple Delphi form containing a TreeView, a Button, CheckBox and an Edit component - leave all the default component names.

 

As you might imagine, the code will work something like:
if GetNodeByText given by Edit1.Text returns a node and MakeVisible (CheckBox1) is true then select node.

The most important part is the GetNodeByText function:

This function simply iterates through all the nodes inside the ATree TreeView starting from the first node (ATree.Items[0]). The iteration uses the GetNext method of the TTreeView class to look for the next node in the ATree (looks inside all nodes of all child nodes). If the Node with text (label) given by AValue is found (case insensitive) the function returns the node. The boolean variable AVisible is used to make the node visible (if hidden).

function GetNodeByText (ATree : TTreeView; AValue:String; AVisible: Boolean): TTreeNode; var Node: TTreeNode; begin Result := nil; if ATree.Items.Count = 0 then Exit; Node := ATree.Items[0]; while Node <> nil do begin if UpperCase(Node.Text) = UpperCase(AValue) then begin Result := Node; if AVisible then Result.MakeVisible; Break; end; Node := Node.GetNext; end; end;

 

This is the code that runs the 'Find Node' button OnClick event:

procedure TForm1.Button1Click(Sender: TObject); var tn : TTreeNode; begin tn:=GetNodeByText(TreeView1,Edit1.Text,CheckBox1.Checked); if tn = nil then ShowMessage('Not found!') else begin TreeView1.SetFocus; tn.Selected := True; end; end;

 

Note: If the node is located the code selects the node, if not a message is displayed.

That's it! As simple as only Delphi can be. However, if you look twice, you'll see something is missing: the code will find the FIRST node given by AText! What if you want to search for a node at the same level as the calling node - where this calling node is also provided to the function!
Intro...If you look twice, you'll see something is missing: the code will find the FIRST node given by AText! What if you want to search for a node at the same level as the calling node - where this calling node is also provided to the function!...

The above text issued a challenge to enhance the TreeView search algorithm introduced in the part 1 of this article: Get TreeView Node By Text.

Remember, we had a treeview component "filled" with nodes. The problem was to search (locate and make visible) the treeview node in a function that receives the node text as the parameter.

Look the picture below, we have a node with the caption "Button" under the "Standard" node. If we are to have the "Button" node below (as a child node) the "Additional" node, the function will find the first "Button" - the one under "Standard".

What we now want, is to tell the function to search for "Button" under "Additional"...

 

We enhance the GetNodeByText function by adding one more parameter - the "InNode" node.

function GetNodeByText (ATree : TTreeView; InNode : TTreeNode; AValue:String; AVisible:boolean) : TTreeNode; var NodeText : String; NextNode : TTreeNode; begin Result := nil; NextNode := InNode.GetFirstChild; while NextNode <> nil do begin NodeText := NextNode.Text; if UpperCase(NodeText) = UpperCase(AValue) then begin NextNode.Selected := AVisible; Break; end else NextNode := NextNode.getNextSibling; end; //while Result := NextNode; end;

 

The function simply iterates through all the first level child nodes of the provided "InNode" node and looks for a node labeled AValue.

 

The code that runs the 'Find Node' button OnClick event is slightly modified. The second parameter is the "root" node for the search - for example the selected node.

procedure TForm1.Button1Click(Sender: TObject); var tn : TTreeNode; begin tn:=GetNodeByText(TreeView1, TreeView1.Selected, Edit1.Text,CheckBox1.Checked); if tn = nil then ShowMessage('Not found!') else TreeView1.SetFocus; end;

That's it. If you have any questions please use the Delphi Programming Forum.