different string representation (buffer gap)

[Josiah Carlson]

[snip]

My advice: find some pre-existing editor component and adapt it to suit 
your needs.  Writing an editor component, whether it be for a GUI or 
console, is a pain in the ass.

If you are looking for a GUI editor component, stick with wxPython and 
the wxStyledTextCtrl, it is a binding to the fabulous scintilla editing 
component: http://scintilla.org

I have no advice for a console editor, but I would suggest you take a 
look at curses or ncurses, whichever one is the open source version.

Once you have that thing embedded in your application, the rest should 
basically write itself.  How do I know?  Because I wrote an editor with 
it myself: http://pype.sourceforge.net


  - Josiah