Syntax highlighting

This article explains how the syntax highlighting in the pre or source elements work.

Supported syntaxes

The built-in supported syntaxes are:

Supported syntaxes

Syntax	Name	Alternate names
batch files[1] They are Windows bat files	batch	bat
C++ files	c++	cpp
C# files	csharp	c#
C files	c	C
fortran files	fortran	-
html files	html	-
idl declarations	idl	IDL
JavaScript files	jscript	js, javascript
JSON files[2] JSON files are valid JavaScript files, so the syntax for these files is the same	json	-
Java files	java	-
Groovy files[3] Groovy files are presented by default with the same syntax as Java files, though the syntax can be overriden by syntax packs	groovy	-
makefiles	make	-
php files	php	-
properties files	props	properties
Python files	python	py
SQL files	sql	SQL
T-SQL files	tsql	T-SQL
shell scripts[4] they are Unix or Linux shell scripts	shell	bash
XML files	xml	dtd, DTD, xsd, xsl
SPARQL files	sparql	-
TeX files	tex	-
xpath files	xpath	-
patch files	patch	-
eiffel files	eiffel	-
manifest files[5] it is Java manifest file	manifest	-
css files	css	-
csv files[6] Uses commas as delimiters	csv	-
csv2 files[7] Uses semi-colons as delimiters	csv2	-
turtle files	turtle	ttl

Syntaxes alternate names

Some syntaxes have alternate names. For example, the two pre declarations are equivalent:

   name=value

or:

   name=value

Using invisible characters

It is possible to use the "_" character at the start of a line in the "pre" element, which will be replaced by a space. This is the case when there are one or more "_" character followed by a space, before the rest of the line. For example:

<pre syntax="java">
   public void toto(int i) {
   _  System.out.println(i);
   }
</pre>

This allows to keep the indentation for programming languages when using formatting in some editors^[8]

For example, Netbeans remove the white spaces at the beginning of a line when specifying text in XML, which might not be what we want

By default the "_" character will be replaced by a space for code and shell syntaxes^[9]

For example, java, groovy, bat or shell syntaxes among others

. It is possible to set explicitly if "_" characters must be kept or replaced by setting the invisibleChars attribute in the "pre" element. For example:

<pre syntax="java" invisibleChars="false">
   public void toto(int i) {
   _ System.out.println(i);
   }
</pre>

Additional syntaxes packs

The application uses the jeditor library to highlight pre element syntax. It is possible to use additional syntax packs by specifying the preSyntax property in the configuration file.

Examples

On a Java syntax

<pre syntax="java">
   public void toto(int i) {
   System.out.println(i);
   }
</pre>

On a Java syntax, with usage of invisible characters

<pre syntax="java">
   public void toto(int i) {
   _  System.out.println(i);
   }
</pre>

will have the following result:

   public void toto(int i) {
      System.out.println(i);
   }

On an XML syntax

<pre syntax="java">
   <parent name="name">
      <child name="child" />
   </parent>
</pre>

will have the following result:

   <parent name="name">
      <child name="child" />
   </parent>

On a CSS syntax

   <pre syntax="css">
      div.left {
      _  float: left;
      _  display: flex;
      }
   </pre>

will have the following result:

   div.left {
      float: left;
      display: flex;
   }

On a properties file

   <pre syntax="properties">
     name=toto
     position=left
   </pre>

will have the following result:

   name=toto
   position=left