How do I get a selected string in from a Tkinter text box?

Question

I\'d like to be able to get a string out of a highlighted portion of text, how do I go about this?

Answer 1

use the get method. If you want the selected text use the indices SEL_FIRST and SEL_LAST.

[edit]] one of the comments speculated this didn't work with Tkinter because there was no attribute "sel". "sel" isn't an attribute, it's a tag. Tags are a remarkably powerful feature of the text widget.

Here's an example:

import Tkinter as tk
import tkFont

class App:
    def __init__(self):
        root=tk.Tk()
        self.text = tk.Text(root)
        self.text.pack()
        self.button = tk.Button(root, text="Get Selection", command=self.OnButton)
        self.button.pack()
        root.mainloop()

    def OnButton(self):
        print "selected text: '%s'" % self.text.get(tk.SEL_FIRST, tk.SEL_LAST)


app=App()

For this demo to work, type some text in the text box then press the button.