Using query-replace to add text properties to replacement strings in Emacs

Question

I'm trying to use query-replace in Emacs to replace a string with another string that has specific text properties. Specifically, in this example, I want to replace occurrences of "foo" with "bar" and apply a face property to "bar" so it is highlighted.

Here's what I'm trying to achieve:

(query-replace "foo" 
               (propertize "bar" 'face 'hi-yellow)
               nil (point-min) (point-max))

Unfortunately, query-replace does not support directly using propertize to apply text properties to the replacement string. This means that while the text replacement works, the text properties are not applied.

Questions:

1. Is there a way in Emacs Lisp to replace text with text properties using query-replace or a similar function?
2. Are there built-in functions or packages that can help achieve this without writing a custom function?

Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

If you check any character of bar in the replacement with C-u C-x =, you'll see that there IS a text property there:

...
There are text properties here:
  face                 hi-yellow

The reason that it is not visible is probably because hi-yellow is not a defined face. At least, when I click on the hi-yellow link in the above display, I get:

Face: hi-yellow   undefined face.

So I replaced it with a defined face (hl-line) in the query-replace call and bar is highlighted.

You probably also need to make sure that font-lock doesn't fool you by getting applied after you change the text property. C-u C-x = will show you if that is the case, I believe: it shows all text properties.