PyCharm 2017.2 Help

Defining TODO Patterns and Filters

Basics

TODO items in the source code are defined by a certain pattern.

Whenever a pattern is changed, or a new pattern is added, PyCharm scans the whole project and rebuilds the index of TODO items. Results display in the TODO tool window, as described in the section Viewing TODO Items.

By default, PyCharm provides two patterns:

  • \btodo\b.*
  • \bfixme\b.*

A generic pattern looks like todo.*

You might want to view the TODO comments of certain a type, and hide the others. For this purpose, PyCharm suggests to use filters. This way you can show those items that match certain patterns only.

Defining TODO patterns

To define a TODO pattern, follow these general steps

  1. Open the TODO page of the Settings dialog.
  2. In the Patterns section, click the Add button /help/img/idea/2017.2/new.png to create a new pattern, or the Edit button /help/img/idea/2017.2/edit1.png to update an existing one. The Add/Edit Pattern dialog opens.
  3. In the Pattern field, enter the regular expression that describes the desired pattern.
  4. In the Icon list, select the desired icon that will mark the matching TODO items in the TODO tool window.
  5. Specify the color and font properties, which PyCharm will use to highlight the matching comments in the source code.
  6. Select the Case sensitive check box, if you want the pattern to be case-sensitive.

Defining filters

To define a filter that will be used to show specific types of TODO items, follow these general steps

  1. Open the TODO page of the Settings dialog.
  2. In the Filters section, click click the Add button /help/img/idea/2017.2/add.png to create a new filter, or the Edit button /help/img/idea/2017.2/edit1.png to update an existing one.
  3. In the Add/Edit Filter dialog, specify the filter name, and select the patterns to be included in the filter.
Last modified: 26 October 2017

See Also