Wsrtjtyk

Im really struggling with serialized textbuffer data. I just got thru an SQL encoding issue(thanks theGtkNerd for the help.) and now my troubles are back.
Im trying to add search/replace functionality to a textview that is using pixbufs and formated text, since i have images/tags stored in the buffer, i am trying to do the replace on the serialized textview buffer data.
the following code works as long as the replace string is the same size as the searchstr.

def _diagFnRReplaceAll(self,oWidget): #Replace All Function

    findbox = self.builder.get_object('FnRFindEntry')

    searchstr = findbox.get_text()

    buf = self.dataview.get_buffer()

    repbox = self.builder.get_object('FnRReplaceEntry')

    repstr = repbox.get_text()

    format = buf.register_serialize_tagset()



    data = buf.serialize(buf, format, buf.get_start_iter(),

    buf.get_end_iter())



    sys.stdout.buffer.write(data) #< print raw for debugging

    newdata = data.replace(bytes(searchstr,'ascii'),bytes(repstr,'ascii'))

    print("nnnn")

    sys.stdout.buffer.write(newdata) #< print raw for debugging



    buf.set_text('')

    format = buf.register_deserialize_tagset()

    buf.deserialize(buf, format, buf.get_end_iter(),newdata)

if its smaller or larger i get the following error.

Gtk:ERROR:../../../../gtk/gtktextbufferserialize.c:1588:text_handler: code should not be reached

i tried changing the encoding type, and different ways to encode, but it didnt help. the fact that a same size string works fine makes me think there is a size value for the serialized buffer data or pixbuf data somewhere, but i havnt come up with anything by searching.
i tried to do the replace like you would on a textview without pics, it worked but lost the pic/format data.

Does anyone know why this is happening?

or does anyone know another way i can do a search and replace in a textview widget that has pixbuf data and formatting tags?

well i got it wotking using a little byte patching.I just saw your comment on using marks, i will look into that as i would rather use builtin functionality instead of what im doing. My way is replacing the 4 bytes after the GTKBUFFERCONTENTS-001 with a new 4 byte value for the new size of the buffer.
here is what i have working right now

def _diagFnRReplaceAll(self,oWidget):

    findbox = self.builder.get_object('FnRFindEntry')

    searchstr = findbox.get_text()

    buf = self.dataview.get_buffer()

    repbox = self.builder.get_object('FnRReplaceEntry')

    repstr = repbox.get_text()

    format = buf.register_serialize_tagset()

    data = buf.serialize(buf, format, buf.get_start_iter(), buf.get_end_iter())







    start_bytes = data[0:26]

    size_bytes =data[26:30]

    sizeval = int.from_bytes(size_bytes, byteorder='big', signed=False)



    end_of_markup = 29 + sizeval +1 

    the_rest = data[end_of_markup:len(data)]

    markup = data[30:end_of_markup]



    newmarkup = bytearray(markup.replace(bytes(searchstr,'ascii'),bytes(repstr,'ascii')))



    newsize = len(newmarkup).to_bytes(4,'big')



    reconstruct =start_bytes + newsize + newmarkup +the_rest





    buf.set_text('')

    format = buf.register_deserialize_tagset()

    buf.deserialize(buf, format, buf.get_end_iter(),reconstruct)

This works without issue so far, i will repost if i get it working with the 'Marks' suggestion. Thanks again theGtknerd.