---
title: Surround With
---

In order to support the ```Code | Surround With...``` action, the plugin needs to register one or more implementations of the
[SurroundDescriptor](https://github.com/JetBrains/intellij-community/blob/master/platform/lang-api/src/com/intellij/lang/surroundWith/SurroundDescriptor.java)
interface in the `com.intellij.lang.surroundDescriptor` extension point.
Each of the surround descriptors defines a possible type of code fragment which can be surrounded - for example, one surround descriptor can handle surrounding expressions, and another can handle statements.
Each surround descriptor, in turn, contains an array of
[Surrounder](https://github.com/JetBrains/intellij-community/blob/master/platform/lang-api/src/com/intellij/lang/surroundWith/Surrounder.java)
objects, defining specific templates which can be used for surrounding the selected code fragment (for example, ```Surround With if```, ```Surround With for``` and so on).

When the ```Surround With...``` action is invoked, the IDE queries all surround descriptors for the language until it finds one that returns a non-empty array from its `getElementsToSurround()` method.
Then it calls the
[Surrounder.isApplicable()](https://github.com/JetBrains/intellij-community/blob/master/platform/lang-api/src/com/intellij/lang/surroundWith/Surrounder.java#L46)
method for each surrounder in that descriptor to check if the specific template is applicable in the current context.
Once the user selects a specific surrounder from the popup menu, the
[Surrounder.surroundElements()](https://github.com/JetBrains/intellij-community/blob/master/platform/lang-api/src/com/intellij/lang/surroundWith/Surrounder.java#L57)
method is used to execute the surround action.