Syntax highlighting

  // comment
 int main ()
 {
    for ( int i = 0 ; i < MAX ; i ++ )
       printf ( "% d \ n " , i );
    return 0 ;
 }

Syntax highlighted C code

Syntax highlighting - selection of syntactic text constructions using various colors , fonts and styles. Usually used to facilitate reading the source code of computer programs, improve visual perception. Syntax highlighting is an important feature of text editors , development environments , debuggers, and other software development tools. Syntax highlighting is also used when publishing source codes on the Internet and on paper.

Content

1 Principle
2 History
3 Examples
4 See also
5 notes
6 References

Principle

When syntax highlighting in the source code of programming languages are highlighted:

language constructs;
comments
numeric and string data

More advanced syntax highlighting systems also highlight:

variables
parentheses
standard language features

Many text editors and development environments also have the function of highlighting pair brackets under the cursor: when the text cursor approaches the bracket, both the bracket near which the cursor is located and the pair to it are highlighted.

Syntax highlighting, in addition to readability, also allows you to avoid syntax errors: incorrect spelling of language constructs, open quotes, etc. There may also be highlighting of obviously incorrect code: for example, unpaired brackets, or invalid characters outside the string data in quotation marks.

History

The Live Parsing Editor ( LEXX or LPEX ) on VM , written to digitize the Oxford Dictionary in 1985 , was one of the first syntax-highlighted editors ^[1] .

Examples

The following compares C code snippets :

normal display

syntax highlighted

  / * Hello World * /
 #include <stdlib.h>
 #include <stdio.h>

 int main ()
 {
     printf ("Hello World \ n");
     return 0;
 }

  / * Hello World * /
 #include <stdlib.h> 
 #include <stdio.h> 

 int main ()
 {
     printf ( "Hello World \ n " );
     return 0 ;
 }

And here is another example of syntactic highlighting: already in C ++ code :

  // Create "window_count" Window objects:
 const auto window_count = int { 10 };
 auto windows = std :: array < std :: shared_ptr < Window > , max_window_count > {};
 for ( auto i = int { 0 }; i < window_count ; ++ i ) {
     windows [ i ] = std :: make_shared < Window > ();
 }

In this example, the editor recognizes the keywords auto , const , int , and for ; comments at the beginning are also highlighted in a special way to distinguish from the current code.

Notes

↑ LEXX - A programmable structured editor

Links

Code2HTML (English) . - Converter from source to HTML with highlighting. Date of treatment November 22, 2009. Archived February 12, 2012.

syntaxhighlighter . - syntax highlighting code on a web page. Date of treatment November 22, 2009. Archived February 12, 2012.

highlight.js (unopened) . - Automatic syntax highlighting on web pages using JavaScript . Date of treatment November 22, 2009. Archived February 12, 2012.

Features syntax highlighting for the Web (neopr.) . - Features syntax highlighting for the Web. Date of treatment December 1, 2010. Archived February 12, 2012.

[1] LEXX - A programmable structured editor