Author: Nigel McNie, Benny Baumann Copyright: © 2004 - 2007 Nigel McNie, 2007 - 2008 Benny Baumann Email: nigel@geshi.org, BenBE@omorphia.de GeSHi Website: http://qbnz.com/highlighter
This is the documentation for GeSHi - Generic Syntax Highlighter. The most modern version of this document is available on the web - go to http://qbnz.com/highlighter/documentation.php to view it.
Any comments, questions, confusing points? Please contact me! I need all the information I can get to make the use of GeSHi and everything related to it (including this documentation) a breeze.
GeSHi is exactly what the acronym stands for: a Generic Syntax Highlighter. As long as you have a language file for almost any computer language - whether it be a scripting language, object orientated, markup or anything in between - GeSHi can highlight it! GeSHi is extremely customisable - the same source can be highlighted multiple times in multiple ways - the same source even with a different language. GeSHi outputs XHTML strict compliant code*, and can make use of CSS to save on the amount of output. And what is the cost for all of this? You need PHP. That's all!
*Most of the time. Some languages do not output XHTML strict code, and using line numbers with the PRE header is not legal either. These problems will be fixed in 1.2.
Here are some of the standout features of GeSHi:
This is just a taste of what you get with GeSHi - the best syntax highlighter for the web in the world!
*Support is granted for PHP 4.3.0 and above, but especially 4.3.x cannot be guaranteed to work due to a lack of test systems. If you are forced to use such old PHP versions complain at your hoster or contact us if you find compatibility issues so we can try to resolve them. It's only PHP 4.4.X and above that is verified to work.
GeSHi started as a mod for the phpBB forum system, to enable highlighting of more languages than the available (which can be roughly estimated to exactly 0 ;)). However, it quickly spawned into an entire project on its own. But now it has been released, work continues on a mod for phpBB* - and hopefully for many forum systems, blogs and other web-based systems.
*I am no longer working on this MOD, however if someone else wants to they can contact me for more information.
Several systems are using GeSHi now, including:
* Available as plugin only. In addition, some of the other entries mentioned here may only have GeSHi available as a plugin.
GeSHi is the original work of Nigel McNie. The project was later handed over to Benny Baumann. Others have helped with aspects of GeSHi also, they're mentioned in the THANKS file.
Many people have helped out with GeSHi, whether by creating language files, submitting bug reports, suggesting new ideas or simply pointing out a new idea or something I'd missed. All of these people have helped to build a better GeSHi, you can see them in the THANKS file.
Do you want your name on this list? Why not make a language file, or submit a valid bug? Or perhaps help me with an added feature I can't get my head around, or suggest a new feature, or even port GeSHi to anothe language? There's lots you can do to help out, and I need it all :)
I need your feedback! ANYthing you have to say is fine, whether it be a query, congratulations, a bug report or complaint, I don't care! I want to make this software the best it can be, and I need your help! You can contact me in the following ways:
Remember, any help I am grateful for :)
In this section, you'll learn a bit about GeSHi, how it works and what it uses, how to install it and how to use it to perform basic highlighting.
If you're reading this and don't have GeSHi, that's a problem ;). So, how do you get your hands on it? Visit http://qbnz.com/highlighter/downloads.php to obtain the latest version.
Installing GeSHi is a snap, even for those most new to PHP. There's no tricks involved. Honest!
GeSHi requires the following to be installable:
As you can see, the requirements are very small. If GeSHi does NOT work for you in a particular version of PHP, let me know why and I'll fix it.
Packages come in .zip, .tar.gz and .tar.bz2 format, so there's no complaining about whether it's available for you. *nix users probably want .tar.gz or .tar.bz2 and windows users probably want .zip.
To extract GeSHi in Linux (.tar.gz):
To extract GeSHi in Windows (.zip):
To extract from .zip you'll need an unzipping program - unzip in Linux, or Winzip, Winrar or similar for Windows.
GeSHi is nothing more than a PHP class with related language support files. Those of you familiar with PHP can then guess how easy the installation will be: simply copy it into your include path somewhere. You can put it wherever you like in this include path. I recommend that you put the language files in a subdirectory of your include path too - perhaps the same subdirectory that geshi.php is in. Remember this path for later.
If you don't know what an include path is, don't worry. Simply copy GeSHi to your webserver. So for example, say your site is at http://mysite.com/myfolder, you can copy GeSHi to your site so the directory structure is like this:
http://mysite.com/myfolder/geshi/[language files] http://mysite.com/myfolder/geshi.php
Or you can put it in any subdirectory you like:
http://mysite.com/myfolder/includes/geshi/[language files] http://mysite.com/myfolder/includes/geshi.php
When using GeSHi on a live site, the only directory required is the geshi/ subdirectory. Both contrib/ and docs/ are worthless, and furthermore, as some people discovered, one of the files in contrib had a security hole (fixed as of 1.0.7.3). I suggest you delete these directories from any live site they are on.
Use of GeSHi is very easy. Here's a simple example:
//
// Include the GeSHi library
//
include_once('geshi.php');
//
// Define some source to highlight, a language to use
// and the path to the language files
//
$source = '$foo = 45;
for ( $i = 1; $i < $foo; $i++ )
{
echo "$foo<br />\n";
--$foo;
}';
$language = 'php';
//
// Create a GeSHi object
//
$geshi =& new GeSHi($source, $language);
//
// And echo the result!
//
echo $geshi->parse_code();
As you can see, there's only three really important lines:
include_once('geshi.php');
This line includes the GeSHi class for use
$geshi = new GeSHi($source, $language);
This line creates a new GeSHi object, holding the source and the language you want to use for highlighting.
echo $geshi->parse_code();
This line spits out the result :)
So as you can see, simple usage of GeSHi is really easy. Just create a new GeSHi object and get the code!
Since version 1.0.2, there is a function included with GeSHi called geshi_highlight.
This behaves exactly as the php function highlight_string behaves - all you do is pass
it the language you want to use to highlight and the path to the language files as well as the source.
Here are some examples:
// Simply echo the highlighted code
geshi_highlight($source, 'php', $path);
// Get the code back, for use later
$code = geshi_highlight($source, 'java', $path, true)
// Check if there is an error with parsing this code
ob_start();
$result = geshi_highlight($source, 'perl', $path);
$code = ob_get_contents();
ob_end_clean();
if ( !$result )
{
// There was an error with highlighting...
}
else
{
// All OK :)
}
However, these are really simple examples and doesn't even begin to cover all the advanced features of GeSHi. If you want to learn more, continue on to section 3: Advanced Features.
This section documents the advanced features of GeSHi - strict mode, using CSS classes, changing styles on the fly, disabling highlighting of some things and more.
In this section there are many code snippets. For all of these, you should assume that the GeSHi library has been included, and a GeSHi object has been created and is referenced by the variable $geshi. Normally, the source, language and path used are arbitary.
The Code Container has a fundamental effect on the layout of your code before you even begin to style. What is the Code Container? It's the bit of markup that goes around your code to contain it. By default your code is surrounded by a <pre>, but you can also specify a <div>.
The <pre> header is the default. If you're familiar with HTML you'll know that whitespace is rendered "as is" by a <pre> element. The advantage for you is that if you use <pre> the whitespace you use will appear pretty much exactly how it is in the source, and what's more GeSHi won't have to add a whole lot of <br />'s and non-breaking spaces ( ) to your code to indent it. This saves you source code (and your valuable visitors waiting time and your bandwidth).
But if you don't like <pre> or it looks stupid in your browser no matter what styles you try to apply to it or something similar, you might want to use a <div> instead. A <div> will result in more source - GeSHi will have to insert whitespace markup - but in return you can wrap long lines of code that would otherwise have your browser's horizontal scrollbar appear. Of course with <div> you can *not* wrap lines if you please. The highlighter demo at the GeSHi home page uses the <div> approach for this reason.
At this stage there isn't an option to wrap the code in <code> tags (unless you use the function geshi_highlight), partly because of the inconsistent and unexpected ways stuff in <code> tags is highlighted. Besides, <code> is an inline element. But this may become an option in future versions.
As of GeSHi 1.0.7.2 there is a new header type, that specifies that the code should not be wrapped in anything at all.
Another requested addition has been made in GeSHi 1.0.7.20 to force GeSHi to create a block around the highlighted source even if this wasn't necessary, thus styles that are applied to the output of GeSHi can directly influence the code only even if headers and footers are present.
To change/set the header to use, you call the set_header_type() method:
$geshi->set_header_type(GESHI_HEADER_DIV);
// or...
$geshi->set_header_type(GESHI_HEADER_PRE);
// or...
$geshi->set_header_type(GESHI_HEADER_NONE);
Those are the only three arguments you should pass to set_header_type. Passing anything else may cause inconsistencies in what is used as the Code Container (although it *should* simply use a <pre>). Better not to risk it.
GESHI_HEADER_DIV, GESHI_HEADER_PRE and GESHI_HEADER_NONE are constants, so don't put them in strings!
The default styles for the <pre> and <div> will be different, especially if you use line numbers!. I have found that a <pre> results in code that is smaller than for that of a <div>, you should rectify this difference by using set_overall_style() if you need to. But be aware of this difference for if you are changing the header type!
GeSHi has the ability to add line numbers to your code (see the demo available at http://qbnz.com/highlighter/demo.php to see what can be achieved). Line numbers are a great way to make your code look professional, especially if you use the fancy line numbers feature.
To highlight a source with line numbers, you call the enable_line_numbers() method:
$geshi->enable_line_numbers($flag);
Where $flag is one of the following:
Normal line numbers means you specify a style for them, and that style gets applied to all of them. Fancy line numbers means that you can specify a different style for each nth line number. You change the value of n (default 5):
$geshi->enable_line_numbers(GESHI_FANCY_LINE_NUMBERS, 37);
The second parameter is not used in any other mode. Setting it to 0 is the same as simply using normal line numbers. Setting it to 1 applies the fancy style to every line number.
The values above are CONSTANTS - so don't put them in strings!
As of GeSHi 1.0.2, line numbers are added by the use of ordered lists. This solves the old issues of line number styles inheriting from styles meant for the code. Also, this solves an important issue about selecting code. For example, line numbers look nice, but when you go to select the code in your browser to copy it? You got the line numbers too! Not such a good thing, but thankfully this issue is now solved. What is the price? Unfortunately the whole way that styles are inherited/used has changed for those of you who were familiar with 1.0.1, and there is quite a bit more HTML involved. So think carefully about these things before you enable line numbers.
Now, onto how to style line numbers:
Styles are set for line numbers using the set_line_style() method:
$geshi->set_line_style('background: #fcfcfc;');
If you're using Fancy Line Numbers mode, you pass a second string for the style of the nth line number:
$geshi->set_line_style('background: #fcfcfc;', 'background: #f0f0f0;');
The second style will have no effect if you're not using Fancy Line Numbers mode.
By default, the styles you pass overwrite the current styles. Add a boolean "true" after the styles you specify to combine them with the current styles:
$geshi->set_line_style('background: red;', true);
// or, for fancy line numbers
$geshi->set_line_style('background: red;', 'background: blue;', true);
Due to a bug with Firefox the issue that should have been fixed with 1.0.2 has reappeared in another form as Firefox includes extra text\markup into plaintext versions of webpage copies. This can sometimes be useful (actually it's used to get the plaintext version of this documentation), but more often is quite annoying. Best practice so far is to either not use line numbers, or offer the visitor of your page a plaintext version of your source. To learn more have a look at the SF.net BugTracker Issue #1651996. This will hopefully be fixed in GeSHi version 1.2 or as soon as Firefox provides webdevelopers with adequate ways to control this feature - whichever comes first!
When you set line number styles, the code will inherit those styles! This is the main issue to come out of the 1.0.2 release. If you want your code to be styled in a predictable manner, you'll have to call the set_code_style() method to rectify this problem.
Note also that you cannot apply background colours to line numbers unless you use set_overall_style(). Here's how you'd style:
This is the one major change from GeSHi 1.0.1 - make sure you become familiar with this, and make sure that you check any code you have already styled with 1.0.1 when you upgrade to make sure nothing bad happens to it.
As of GeSHi 1.0.2, you can now make the line numbers start at any number, rather than just 1. This feature is useful if you're highlighting code from a file from around a certain line number in that file, as an additional guide to those who will view the code. You set the line numbers by calling the start_line_numbers_at() method:
$geshi->start_line_numbers_at($number);
$number must be a positive integer (or zero). If it is not, GeSHi will convert it anyway.
If you have not enabled line numbers, this will have no effect.
Although I'd like GeSHi to have XHTML strict compliance, this feature will break compliancy (however transitional compliancy remains). This is because the only widely supported way to change the start value for line numbers is by using the start="number" attribute of the <ol> tag. Although CSS does provide a mechanism for doing this, it is only supported in Opera versions 7.5 and above (not even Firefox supports this).
Using CSS to highlight your code instead of in-lining the styles is a definate bonus. Not only is it more compliant (the w3c is deprecating the style attribute in XHTML 2.0) but it results in far less outputted code - up to a whopping 90% saving - which makes a *huge* difference to those unlucky of us on modems!
By default, GeSHi doesn't use the classes, so it's easy just to whack out some highlighted code if you need without worrying about stylesheets. However, if you're a bit more organised about it, you should use the classes ;). To turn the use of classes on, you call the enable_classes() method:
$geshi->enable_classes();
If you want to turn classes OFF for some reason later:
$geshi->enable_classes(false);
If classes are enabled when parse_code() is called, then the resultant source will use CSS classes in the output, otherwise it will in-line the styles. The advantages of using classes are great - the reduction in source will be very noticeable, and what's more you can use one stylesheet for several different highlights on the same page. In fact, you can even use an external stylesheet and link to that, saving even more time and source (because stylesheets are cached by browsers).
There have been problems with inline styles and the Symbol Highlighting added in 1.0.7.21. If you can you should therefore turn CSS classes ON to avoid those issues.
This should be the very first method you call after creating a new GeSHi object! That way, various other methods can act upon your choice to use classes correctly. In theory, you could call this method just before parsing the code, but this may result in unexpected behaviour.
You can set an overall CSS class and id for the code. This is a good feature that allows you to use the same stylesheet for many different snippets of code. You call set_overall_class() and set_overall_id to accomplish this:
$geshi->set_overall_class('mycode');
$geshi->set_overall_id('dk48ck');
The default classname is the name of the language being used. This means you can use just the one stylesheet for all sources that use the same language, and incidentally means that you probably won't have to call these methods too often.
CSS IDs are supposed to be unique, and you should use them as such. Basically, you can specify an ID for your code and then use that ID to highlight that code in a unique way. You'd do this for a block of code that you expressly wanted to be highlighted in a different way (see the section below on gettting the stylesheet for your code for an example).
The other half of using CSS classes is getting the stylesheet for use with the classes. GeSHi makes it very easy to get a stylesheet for your code, with one easy method call:
$geshi->enable_classes();
// Here we have code that will spit out a header for
// a stylesheet. For example:
echo '<html>
<head><title>Code</title>
<style type="text/css">
<!--';
// Echo out the stylesheet for this code block
echo $geshi->get_stylesheet();
// And continue echoing the page
echo '-->
</style></head>
<body>';
The get_stylesheet() method gets the stylesheet for your code in one easy call. All you need to do is output it in the correct place. As you can also see, you don't even have to enable class usage to get the stylesheet nessecary either - however not enabling classes but using the stylesheet may result in problems later.
By default, get_stylesheet() tries to echo the least amount of code possible. Although currently it doesn't check to see if a certain lexic is even in the source, you can expect this feature in the future. At least for the present however, if you explicitly disable the highlighting of a certain lexic, or disable line numbers, the related CSS will not be outputted. This may be a bad thing for you perhaps you're going to use the stylesheet for many blocks of code, some with line numbers, others with some lexic enabled where this source has it disabled. Or perhaps you're building an external stylesheet and want all lexics included. So to get around this problem, you do this:
$geshi->get_stylesheet(false);
This turns economy mode off, and all of the stylesheet will be outputted regardless.
Now lets say you have several snippets of code, using the same language. In most of them you don't mind if they're highlighted the same way (in fact, that's exactly what you want) but in one of them you'd like the source to be highlighted differently. Here's how you can do that:
// assume path is the default "geshi/" relative to the current directory
$geshi1 = new GeSHi($source1, $lang);
$geshi2 = new GeSHi($source2, $lang);
$geshi3 = new GeSHi($source3, $lang);
// Turn classes on for all sources
$geshi1->enable_classes();
$geshi2->enable_classes();
$geshi3->enable_classes();
// Make $geshi3 unique
$geshi3->set_overall_id('different');
//
// Methods are called on $geshi3 to change styles...
//
echo '<html>
<head><title>Code</title>
<style type="text/css">
<!--
';
// Get the nessecary stylesheets
echo $geshi1->get_stylesheet();
echo $geshi3->get_stylesheet();
echo '-->
</style></head>
<body>';
echo 'Code snippet 1:';
echo $geshi1->parse_code();
echo 'Code snippet 2 (same highlighting as 1):';
echo $geshi2->parse_code();
echo 'Code snippet 3 (DIFFERENT highlighting):';
echo $geshi3->parse_code();
echo '</body></html>';
Before version 1.0.2, you needed to set the class of the code you wanted to be unique to the empty string. This limitation has been removed in version 1.0.2 - if you set the ID of a block of code, all styling will be done based on that ID alone.
An external stylesheet can reduce even more the amount of code needed to highlight some source. However there are some drawbacks with this. To use an external stylesheet, it's up to you to link it in to your document, normally with the following HTML:
<html>
<head>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="url_to_stylesheet.css" />
In your external stylesheet you put CSS declarations for your code. Then just make sure you're using the correct class (use set_overall_class() to ensure this) and this should work fine.
This method is great if you don't mind the source always being highlighted the same (in particular, if you're making a plugin for a forum/wiki/other system, using an external stylesheet is a good idea!). It saves a small amount of code and your bandwidth, and it's relatively easy to just change the stylesheet should you need to. However, using this will render the methods that change the styles of the code useless, because of course the stylesheet is no longer being dynamically generated. You can still disable highlighting of certain lexics dynamically, however.
As of version 1.0.2, GeSHi comes with a contrib/ directory, which in it contains a "wizard" script for creating a stylesheet. Although this script is by no means a complete solution, it will create the necessary rules for the basic lexics - comments, strings for example. Things not included in the wizard include regular expressions for any language that uses them (PHP and XML are two languages that use them), and keyword-link styles. However, this script should take some of the tedium out of the job of making an external stylesheet. Expect a much better version of this script in version 1.2!
One of the more powerful features of GeSHi is the ability to change the style of the output dynamically. Why be chained to the boring styles the language authors make up? You can change almost every single aspect of highlighted code - and can even say whether something is to be highlighted at all.
If you're confused about "styles", you probably want to have a quick tutorial in them so you know what you can do with them. Checkout the homepage of CSS at http://www.w3.org/Style/CSS.
The code outputted by GeSHi is either in a <div> or a <pre> (see the section entitled "The Code Container"), and this can be styled.
$geshi->set_overall_style('... styles ...');
Where styles is a string containing valid CSS declarations. By default, these styles overwrite the current styles, but you can change this by adding a second parameter:
$geshi->set_overall_style('color: blue;', true);
The default styles "shine through" wherever anything isn't highlighted. Also, you can apply more advanced styles, like position: (fixed|relative) etc, because a <div>/<pre> is a block level element.
Remember that a <div> will by default have a larger font size than a <pre>, as discussed in the section "The Code Container".
You may wish to refer to the section Styling Line Numbers before reading this section.
As of version 1.0.2, the way line numbers are generated is different, so therefore the way that they are styled is different. In particular, now you cannot set the background style of the fancy line numbers to be different from that of the normal line numbers.
Line number styles are set by using the method set_line_style:
$geshi->set_line_style($style1, $style2);
$style1 is the style of the line numbers by default, and $style2 is the style of the fancy line numbers.
Things have changed since 1.0.1! This note is very important - please make sure you check this twice before complaining about line numbers!
Because of the way that ordered lists are done in HTML, there really isn't normally a way to style the actual numbers in the list. I've cheated somewhat with GeSHi - I've made it possible to use CSS to style the foreground of the line numbers. So therefore, you can change the color, font size and type, and padding on them. If you want to have a pretty background, you must use set_overall_style() to do this, and use set_code_style() to style the actual code! This is explained in the section above: Styling Line Numbers.
In addition, the styles for fancy line numbers is now the difference between the normal styles and the styles you want to achieve. For example, in GeSHi prior to 1.0.2 you may have done this to style line numbers:
$geshi->set_line_style('color: red; font-weight: bold;', 'color: green; font-weight: bold');
Now you instead can do this:
$geshi->set_line_style('color: red; font-weight: bold;', 'color: green;');
The font-weight: bold; will automatically carry through to the fancy styles. This is actually a small saving in code - but the difference may be confusing for anyone using 1.0.1 at first.
Perhaps the most regular change you will make will be to the styles of a keyword set. In order to change the styles for a particular set, you'll have to know what the set is called first. Sets are numbered from 1 up. Typically, set 1 contains keywords like if, while, do, for, switch etc, set 2 contains null, false, true etc, set 3 contains function inbuilt into the language (echo, htmlspecialchars etc. in PHP) and set 4 contains data types and similar variable modifiers: int, double, real, static etc. However these things are not fixed, and you should check the language file to see what key you want. Having a familiarity with a language file is definately a plus for using it.
To change the styles for a keyword set, call the set_keyword_group_style() method:
$geshi->set_keyword_group_style($group, $styles);
Where $group is the group to change the styles for and $styles is a string containing the styles to apply to that group.
By default, the styles you pass overwrite the current styles. Add a boolean true after the styles you specify to combine them with the current styles:
$geshi->set_keyword_group_style(3, 'color: white;', true);
To change the styles for a comment group, call the set_comments_style() method:
$geshi->set_comments_style($group, $styles);
Where $group is either a number corresponding to a single-line comment, or the string 'MULTI' to specify multiline comments:
$geshi->set_comments_style(1, 'font-style: italic;');
$geshi->set_comments_style('MULTI', 'display: hidden;');
By default, the styles you pass overwrite the current styles. Add a boolean true after the styles you specify to combine them with the current styles:
$geshi->set_comments_style(1, 'font-weight: 100;', true);
In 1.0.7.22 a new kind of Comments called "COMMENT_REGEXP" has been added. Those are handled by setting single line comment styles.
GeSHi can highlight many other aspects of your source other than just keywords and comments. Strings, Numbers, Methods and Brackets among other things can all also be highlighted. Here are the related methods:
$geshi->set_escape_characters_style($styles[, $preserve_defaults]);
$geshi->set_symbols_style($styles[, $preserve_defaults]);
$geshi->set_strings_style($styles[, $preserve_defaults]);
$geshi->set_numbers_style($styles[, $preserve_defaults]);
$geshi->set_methods_style($key, $styles[, $preserve_defaults]);
$geshi->set_regexps_style($key, $styles[, $preserve_defaults]);
$styles is a string containing valid stylesheet declarations, while $preserve_defaults should be set to true if you want your styles to be merged with the previous styles. In the case of set_methods_style, you should select a group to set the styles of, check the language files for the number used for each "object splitter".
Like this was possible for set_method_style a new parameter has been introduced for
set_symbols_style too which allows you to select the group of
symbols for which you'd like to change your style.
$geshi->set_symbols_style($styles[, $preserve_defaults[, $group]]);
If the third parameter is not given, group 0 is assumed. Furthermore you should note that any changes to group 0 are also reflected in the bracket style, i.e. a pass-through call to set_bracket_style is made.
Controlling the case of the outputted source is an easy job with GeSHi. You can control which keywords are converted in case, and also control whether keywords are checked in a case sensitive manner.
Auto-Caps/Nocaps is a nifty little feature that capitalises or lowercases automatically certain lexics when they are styled. I dabble in QuickBASIC, a dialect of BASIC which is well known for it's capatalisation, and SQL is another language well known for using caps for readability.
To change what case lexics are rendered in, you call the set_case_keywords() method:
$geshi->set_case_keywords($caps_modifier);
The valid values to pass to this method are:
When I say "lexic", I mean "keywords". Any keyword in any keyword array will be modified using this option! This is one small area of inflexibility I hope to fix in 1.2.X.
I suspect this will only be used to specify GESHI_CAPS_NO_CHANGE to turn off autocaps for languages like SQL and BASIC variants, like so:
$geshi = new GeSHi($source, 'sql');
$geshi->set_case_keywords(GESHI_CAPS_NO_CHANGE); // don't want keywords capatalised
All the same, it can be used for some interesting effects:
$geshi = new GeSHi($source, 'java');
// Anyone who's used java knows how picky it is about CapitalLetters...
$geshi->set_case_keywords(GESHI_CAPS_LOWER);
// No *way* the source will look right now ;)
Some languages, like PHP, don't mind what case function names and keywords are in, while others, like Java, depend on such pickiness to maintain their bad reputations ;). In any event, you can use the set_case_sensitivity to change the case sensitiveness of a particular keyword group from the default:
$geshi->set_case_sensitivity($key, $sensitivity);
Where $key is the key of the group for which you wish to change case sensitivness for (see the language file for that language), and $sensitivity is a boolean value - true if the keyword is case sensitive, and false if not.
What happens if you want to change the source to be highlighted on the fly, or the language. Or if you want to specify any of those basic fields after you've created a GeSHi object? Well, that's where these methods come in.
To change the source code, you call the set_source() method:
$geshi->set_source($newsource);
Example:
$geshi = new GeSHi($source1, 'php');
// Method calls to specify various options...
$code1 = $geshi->parse_code();
$geshi->set_source($source2);
$code2 = $geshi->parse_code();
What happens if you want to change the language used for highlighting? Just call set_language():
$geshi->set_language('newlanguage');
Example:
$geshi = new GeSHi($source, 'php');
$code = $geshi->parse_code();
// Highlight GeSHi's output
$geshi->set_source($code);
$geshi->set_language('html4strict');
$geshi->enable_classes(false);
echo $geshi->parse_code();
Names are case-insensitive - they will be converted to lower case to match a language file however. So if you're making a language file, remember it should have a name in lower case.
What you pass to this method is the name of a language file, minus the .php extension. If you're writing a plugin for a particular application, it's up to you to somehow convert user input into a valid language name.
GeSHi include()s the language file, so be careful to make sure that users can't pass some wierd language name to include any old script! GeSHi tries to strip non-valid characters out of a language name, but you should always do this your self anyway. In particular, language files are always lower-case, with either alphanumeric characters, dashes or underscores in their name.
At the very least, strip "/" characters out of a language name.
What happens if all of a sudden you want to use language files from a different directory from the current language file location? You call the set_language_path() method:
$geshi->set_language_path($newpath);
It doesn't matter whether the path has a trailing slash after it or not - only that it points to a valid folder. If it doesn't, that's your tough luck ;)
As of GeSHi 1.0.7.18, you don't need to use this, as htmlspecialchars is not being used due to a security flaw in it (that is unpatched in even the most recent PHP4 versions, and in PHP5 < 5.2). As long as you set the encoding properly with a php header() call, your foreign characters will be displayed correctly.
As of version 1.0.3, you can use the method set_encoding to specify the character set that your source is in. Valid names are those names that are valid for the PHP function htmlentities():
$geshi->set_encoding($encoding);
There is a table of valid strings for $encoding at the php.net manual linked to above. If you do not specify an encoding, or specify an invalid encoding, the character set used is ISO-8859-1.
As of GeSHi 1.0.5, you can use the method load_from_file to load the source code and language from a file. Simply pass this method a file name and it will attempt to load the source and set the language.
$geshi->load_from_file($file_name, $lookup);
$file_name is the file name to use, and $lookup is an optional parameter that contains a lookup array to use for deciding which language to choose. You can use this to override GeSHi's default lookup array, which may not contain the extension of the file you're after, or perhaps does have your extension but under a different language. The lookup array is of the form:
array(
* 'lang_name' => array('extension', 'extension', ...),
* 'lang_name' ...
* );
Also, you can use the method get_language_name_from_extension if you need to convert a file extension to a valid language name. This method will return the empty string if it could not find a match in the lookup, and like load_from_file it accepts an optional second parameter that contains a lookup array.
What happens if you try to highlight using a language that doesn't exist? Or if GeSHi can't read a required file? The results you get may be confusing. You may check your code over and over, and never find anything wrong. GeSHi provides ways of finding out if GeSHi itself found anything wrong with what you tried to do. After highlighting, you can call the error() method:
$geshi = new GeSHi('hi', 'thisLangIsNotSupported');echo $geshi->error(); // echoes error messageThe error message you will get will look like this:
GeSHi Error: GeSHi could not find the language thisLangIsNotSupported (using path geshi/) (code 2)
The error outputted will be the last error GeSHi came across, just like how mysql_error() works.
One disadvantage of GeSHi is that for large source files using complex languages, it can be quite slow with every option turned on. Although future releases will concentrate on the speed/resource side of highlighting, for now you can gain speed increases by disabling some of the highlighting options. This is done by using a series of set_*_highlighting methods:
In case all highlighting should be disabled or reenabled GeSHi provides two methods called disable_highlighting() and enable_highlighting($flag). The optional paramter $flag has been added in 1.0.7.21 and specifies the desired state, i.e. true (default) to turn all highlighting on, or false to turn all highlighting off. Since 1.0.7.21 the method disnable_highlighting() has become deprecated.
If you're using the <pre> header, tabs are handled automatically by your browser, and in general you can count on good results. However, if you're using the <div> header, you may want to specify a tab width explicitly.
Note that tabs created in this fashion won't be like normal tabs - there won't be "tab-stops" as such, instead tabs will be replaced with the specified number of spaces.
To change the tab width, you call the set_tab_width() method:
$geshi->set_tab_width($width);
Where $width is the width in spaces that you'd like tabs to be.
Some languages like to get tricky, and jump in and out of the file that they're in. For example, the vast majority of you reading
this will have used a PHP file. And you know that PHP code is only executed if it's within delimiters like <?php and ?> (there
are others of course...). So what happens if you do the following in a php file?
<img src="<?php echo rand(1, 100) ?>" />
Well normally using GeSHi with PHP, or using a bad highlighter, you'll end up with this:
<img src="<?php echo rand(1, 100) ?>" />
What a mess! Especially if you're being slack about where you're putting your quotes, you could end up with the rest of your file as bright red. Fortunately, you can tell GeSHi to be "strict" about just when it highlights and when it does not, using the enable_strict_mode method:
$geshi->enable_strict_mode($mode);
Where $mode is true or not specified to enable strict mode, or false to disable strict mode if you've already turned it and don't want it now.
Here's the result: much better!
<img src="<?php echo rand(1, 100) ?>" />
Lets say that you're working on a large project, with many files, many classes and many functions. Perhaps also you have the source code on the web and highlighted by GeSHi, perhaps as a front end to CVS, as a learning tool, something to refer to, whatever. Well, why not highlight the names of the functions and classes *your* project uses, as well as the standard functions and classes? Or perhaps you're not interested in highlighting certain functions, and would like to remove them? Or maybe you don't mind if an entire function group goes west in the interest of speed? GeSHi can handle all of this!
If you want to add a keyword to an existing keyword group, you use the add_keyword method:
$geshi->add_keyword($key, $word);
Where $key is the index of the group of keywords you want to add this keyword to, and $word is the word to add.
This implies knowledge of the language file to know the correct index.
Keywords should contain at least two alphabetical characters (lower or upper case letters only). This is to enable GeSHi to work much faster by not bothering to try to detect keywords in parts of your source where there is no alphabetical characters.
Perhaps you want to remove a keyword from an existing group. Maybe you don't use it and want to save yourself some time. Whatever the reason, you can remove it using the remove_keyword method:
$geshi->remove_keyword($key, $word);
Where $key is the index of the gropu of keywords that you want to remove this keyword from, and $word is the word to remove.
This implies knowledge of the language file to know the correct index - most of the time the keywords you'll want to remove will be in group 3, but this is not guaranteed and you should check the language file first.
This function is silent - if the keyword is not in the group you specified, nothing awful will happen ;)
Lets say for your big project you have several main functions and classes that you'd like highlighted. Why not add them as their own group instead of having them highlighted the same way as other keywords? Then you can make them stand out, and people can instantly see which functions and classes are user defined or inbuilt. Furthermore, you could set the URL for this group to point at the API documentation of your project.
You add a keyword group by using the add_keyword_group method:
$geshi->add_keyword_group($key, $styles, $case_sensitive, $words);
Where $key is the key that you want to use to refer to this group, $styles is the styles that you want to use to style this group, $case_sensitive is true or false depending on whether you want this group of keywords to be case sensitive or not and $words is an array of words (or a string) of which words to add to this group. For example:
$geshi->add_keyword_group(10, 'color: #600000;', false, array('myfunc_1', 'myfunc_2', 'myfunc_3'));
Adds a keyword group referenced by index 10, of which all keywords in the group will be dark red, each keyword can be in any case and which contains the keywords "myfunc_1", "myfunc_2" and "myfunc_3".
After creating such a keyword group, you may call other GeSHi methods on it, just as you would for any other keyword group.
If you specify a $key for which there is already a keyword group, the old keyword group will be overwritten! Most language files don't use numbers larger than 5, so I recommend you play it safe and use a number like 10 or 42.
Perhaps you *really* need speed? Why not just remove an entire keyword group? GeSHi won't have to loop through each keyword checking for its existance, saving much time. You remove a keyword group by using the remove_keyword_group method:
$geshi->remove_keyword_group($key);
Where $key is the key of the group you wish to remove. This implies knowleged of the language file.
So you want to add some special information to the highlighted source? GeSHi can do that too! You can specify headers and footers for your code, style them, and insert information from the highlighted source into your header or footer.
In your header and footer, you can put special keywords that will be replaced with actual configuration values for this GeSHi object. The keywords you can use are:
The header for your code is a <div>, which is inside the containing block. Therefore, it is affected by the method set_overall_style, and should contain the sort of HTML that belongs in a <div>. You may use any HTML you like, and format it as an HTML document. You should use valid HTML - convert to entities any quotemarks or angle brackets you want displayed. You set the header content using the method set_header_content:
$geshi->set_header_content($content);
Where $content is the HTML you want to use for the header.
The footer for your code is a <div>, which is inside the containing block. Therefore, it is affected by the method set_overall_style, and should contain the sort of HTML that belongs in a <div>. You may use any HTML you like, and format it as an HTML document. You should use valid HTML - convert to entities any quotemarks or angle brackets you want displayed. You set the footer content using the method set_footer_content:
$geshi->set_footer_content($content);
Where $content is the HTML you want to use for the footer.
You can apply styles to the header content you have set with the set_header_content_style:
$geshi->set_header_content_style($styles);
Where $styles is the stylesheet declarations you want to use to style the header content.
You can apply styles to the footer content you have set with the set_footer_content_style:
$geshi->set_footer_content_style($styles);
Where $styles is the stylesheet declarations you want to use to style the footer content.
As of version 1.0.2, GeSHi allows you to specify a URL for keyword groups. This URL is used by GeSHi to convert the keywords in that group into URLs to appropriate documentation. And using add_keyword_group you can add functions and classes from your own projects and use the URL functionality to provide a link to your own API documentation.
To set the URL to be used for a keyword group, you use the set_url_for_keyword_group method:
$geshi->set_url_for_keyword_group($group, $url);
Where $group is the keyword group you want to assign the URL for, and $url is the URL for this group of keywords.
You may be wondering how to make each keyword in the group point to the correct URL. You do this by putting {FNAME} in the URL at the correct place. For example, PHP makes it easy by linking www.php.net/function-name to the documentation for that function, so the URL used is http://www.php.net/{FNAME}.
Of course, when you get to a language like Java, that puts its class documentation in related folders, it gets a little trickier to work out an appropriate URL (see the Java language file!). I hope to provide some kind of redirection service at the GeSHi website in the future.
As of Version 1.0.7.21 there have been added two more symbols you can use to link to functions. {FNAMEL} will generate the lowercase version of the keyword, {FNAMEU} will generate the upper-case version. {FNAME} will provide the keyword as specified in the language file.
It's easy to disable a URL for a keyword group: Simply use the method set_url_for_keyword_group to pass an empty string as the URL:
$geshi->set_url_for_keyword_group($group, '');
As of GeSHi 1.0.7.18, you can disable all URL linking for keywords:
$geshi->enable_keyword_links(false);
You can also style the function links. You can style their default status, hovered, active and visited status. All of this is controlled by one method, set_link_styles:
$geshi->set_link_styles($mode, $styles);
Where $mode is one of four values:
And $styles is the stylesheet declarations to apply to the links.
Perhaps you want to set the target of link attributes, so the manual pages open in a new window? Use the set_link_target method:
$geshi->set_link_target($target, $styles);
Where $target is any valid (X)HTML target value - _blank or _top for example.
This functionality is not only buggy, but is proving very hard to implement in 1.1.X. Therefore, this functionality may well be removed in 1.2.0. You are hereby warned!
An alternative (and more stable) method of highlighting code that is important is to use extra highlighting by line. Although you may not know what line numbers contain the important lines, if you do this method is a much more flexible way of making important lines stand out.
To specify which lines to highlight extra, you past an array containing the line numbers to highlight_lines_extra:
$geshi->highlight_lines_extra($array);
The array could be in the form array(2, 3, 4, 7, 12, 344, 4242), made from a DB query, generated from looking through the source for certain important things and working out what line those things are... however you get the line numbers, the array should simply be an array of integers.
Here's an example, using the same source as before:
//
// Here we go again! This time we'll simply highlight the 8th line
//
$source = 'public int[][] product ( n, m )
{
int [][] ans = new int[n][m];
for ( int i = 0; i < n; i++ )
{
for ( int j = 0; i < m; j++ )
{
ans[i][j] = i * j;
}
}
return ans;
}';
$geshi = new GeSHi($source, 'java');
$geshi->highlight_lines_extra(array(8));
echo $geshi->parse_code();
Which produces:
public int[][] product ( n, m )
{
int [][] ans = new int[n][m];
for ( int i = 0; i < n; i++ )
{
for ( int j = 0; i < m; j++ )
{
ans[i][j] = i * j;
}
}
return ans;
}
What's more, as you can see the code on a highlighted line is still actually highlighted itself.
As you can see, this is a little buggy, but that is because of HTML laws (code elements should not contain div elements). This works just fine if you use line numbers.
Again as with contextual importance, you're not chained to the yellow theme that is the default. You can use the set_highlight_lines_extra_style method:
$geshi->set_highlight_lines_extra_style($styles);
Where $styles is the stylesheet declarations that you want to apply to highlighted lines.
Perhaps you're a javascript junkie? GeSHi provides a way to give each line an ID so you can access that line with javascript, or perhaps just by plain CSS (though if you want to access lines by CSS you should use the method in the previous section). To enable IDs you call the enable_ids method:
$geshi->enable_ids($flag);
Where $flag is true or not present to enable IDs, and false to disable them again if you need.
The ID generated is in the form {overall-css-id}-{line-number}. So for example, if you set the overall CSS id to be "mycode", then the IDs for each line would by "mycode-1", "mycode-2" etc. If there is no CSS ID set, then one is made up in the form geshi-[4 random characters], but this is not so useful for if you want to do javascript manipulation.
Once you've called parse_code, you can get the time it took to run the highlighting by calling the get_time method:
$geshi = new GeSHi($source, $language, $path);
$code = mysql_real_escape_string($geshi->parse_code());
$time = $geshi->get_time();
// do something with it
mysql_query("INSERT INTO code VALUES ('$code', '$time')");
So now you know what features GeSHi offers, and perhaps you've even meddled with the source. Or perhaps you'd like a language file for language X but it doesn't seem to be supported? Rubbish! GeSHi will highlight anything, what do you think I coded this for? ^_^ You'll just have to learn how to make a language file yourself. And I promise it's not too hard - and if you're here you're in the right place!
Let's begin by looking at an example language file - the language file for the first language ever supported, PHP.
<?php /************************************************************************************* * php.php * -------- * Author: Nigel McNie (nigel@geshi.org) * Copyright: (c) 2004 Nigel McNie (http://qbnz.com/highlighter/) * Release Version: 1.0.2 * CVS Revision Version: $Revision$ * Date Started: 2004/06/20 * Last Modified: $Date$ * * PHP language file for GeSHi. * * CHANGES * ------- * 2004/XX/XX (1.0.2) * - Added URL support * - Added extra constants * 2004/08/05 (1.0.1) * - Added support for symbols * 2004/07/14 (1.0.0) * - First Release * * TODO (updated 2004/07/14) * ------------------------- * * Make sure the last few function I may have missed * (like eval()) are included for highlighting * * Split to several files - php4, php5 etc * ************************************************************************************* * * This file is part of GeSHi. * * GeSHi is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify * it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by * the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or * (at your option) any later version. * * GeSHi is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, * but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of * MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the * GNU General Public License for more details. * * You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License * along with GeSHi; if not, write to the Free Software * Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA * ************************************************************************************/ $language_data = array ( 'LANG_NAME' => 'PHP', 'COMMENT_SINGLE' => array(1 => '//', 2 => '#'), 'COMMENT_MULTI' => array('/*' => '*/'), 'CASE_KEYWORDS' => GESHI_CAPS_NO_CHANGE, 'QUOTEMARKS' => array("'", '"'), 'ESCAPE_CHAR' => '\\', 'KEYWORDS' => array( 1 => array( 'include', 'require', 'include_once', 'require_once', 'for', 'foreach', 'as', 'if', 'elseif', 'else', 'while', 'do', 'endwhile', 'endif', 'switch', 'case', 'endswitch', 'return', 'break' ), 2 => array( 'null', '__LINE__', '__FILE__', 'false', '<?php', '?>', '<?', '<script language=', '</script>', 'true', 'var', 'default', 'function', 'class', 'new', '__FUNCTION__', '__CLASS__', '__METHOD__', 'PHP_VERSION', 'PHP_OS', 'DEFAULT_INCLUDE_PATH', 'PEAR_INSTALL_DIR', 'PEAR_EXTENSION_DIR', 'PHP_EXTENSION_DIR', 'PHP_BINDIR', 'PHP_LIBDIR', 'PHP_DATADIR', 'PHP_SYSCONFDIR', 'PHP_LOCALSTATEDIR', 'PHP_CONFIG_FILE_PATH', 'PHP_OUTPUT_HANDLER_START', 'PHP_OUTPUT_HANDLER_CONT', 'PHP_OUTPUT_HANDLER_END', 'E_ERROR', 'E_WARNING', 'E_PARSE', 'E_NOTICE', 'E_CORE_ERROR', 'E_CORE_WARNING', 'E_COMPILE_ERROR', 'E_COMPILE_WARNING', 'E_USER_ERROR', 'E_USER_WARNING', 'E_USER_NOTICE', 'E_ALL' ), 3 => array( 'zlib_get_coding_type','zend_version','zend_logo_guid','yp_order','yp_next', 'yp_match','yp_master','yp_get_default_domain','yp_first','yp_errno','yp_err_string', 'yp_cat','yp_all','xml_set_unparsed_entity_decl_handler','xml_set_start_namespace_decl_handler','xml_set_processing_instruction_handler','xml_set_object', 'xml_set_notation_decl_handler','xml_set_external_entity_ref_handler','xml_set_end_namespace_decl_handler','xml_set_element_handler','xml_set_default_handler','xml_set_character_data_handler', 'xml_parser_set_option','xml_parser_get_option','xml_parser_free','xml_parser_create_ns','xml_parser_create','xml_parse_into_struct', 'xml_parse','xml_get_error_code','xml_get_current_line_number','xml_get_current_column_number','xml_get_current_byte_index','xml_error_string', 'wordwrap','wddx_serialize_vars','wddx_serialize_value','wddx_packet_start','wddx_packet_end','wddx_deserialize', 'wddx_add_vars','vsprintf','vprintf','virtual','version_compare','var_export', 'var_dump','utf8_encode','utf8_decode','usort','usleep','user_error', 'urlencode','urldecode','unserialize','unregister_tick_function','unpack','unlink', 'unixtojd','uniqid','umask','uksort','ucwords','ucfirst', 'uasort','trim','trigger_error','touch','token_name','token_get_all', 'tmpfile','time','textdomain','tempnam','tanh','tan', 'system','syslog','symlink','substr_replace','substr_count','substr', 'strval','strtr','strtoupper','strtotime','strtolower','strtok', 'strstr','strspn','strrpos','strrev','strrchr','strpos', 'strncmp','strncasecmp','strnatcmp','strnatcasecmp','strlen','stristr', 'stripslashes','stripcslashes','strip_tags','strftime','stream_wrapper_register','stream_set_write_buffer', 'stream_set_timeout','stream_set_blocking','stream_select','stream_register_wrapper','stream_get_meta_data','stream_filter_prepend', 'stream_filter_append','stream_context_set_params','stream_context_set_option','stream_context_get_options','stream_context_create','strcspn', 'strcoll','strcmp','strchr','strcasecmp','str_word_count','str_shuffle', 'str_rot13','str_replace','str_repeat','str_pad','stat','sscanf', 'srand','sqrt','sql_regcase','sprintf','spliti','split', 'soundex','sort','socket_writev','socket_write','socket_strerror','socket_shutdown', 'socket_setopt','socket_set_timeout','socket_set_option','socket_set_nonblock','socket_set_blocking','socket_set_block', 'socket_sendto','socket_sendmsg','socket_send','socket_select','socket_recvmsg','socket_recvfrom', 'socket_recv','socket_readv','socket_read','socket_listen','socket_last_error','socket_iovec_set', 'socket_iovec_free','socket_iovec_fetch','socket_iovec_delete','socket_iovec_alloc','socket_iovec_add','socket_getsockname', 'socket_getpeername','socket_getopt','socket_get_status','socket_get_option','socket_create_pair','socket_create_listen', 'socket_create','socket_connect','socket_close','socket_clear_error','socket_bind','socket_accept', 'sleep','sizeof','sinh','sin','similar_text','shuffle', 'show_source','shmop_write','shmop_size','shmop_read','shmop_open','shmop_delete', 'shmop_close','shm_remove_var','shm_remove','shm_put_var','shm_get_var','shm_detach', 'shm_attach','shell_exec','sha1_file','sha1','settype','setlocale', 'setcookie','set_time_limit','set_socket_blocking','set_magic_quotes_runtime','set_include_path','set_file_buffer', 'set_error_handler','session_write_close','session_unset','session_unregister','session_start','session_set_save_handler', 'session_set_cookie_params','session_save_path','session_register','session_regenerate_id','session_name','session_module_name', 'session_is_registered','session_id','session_get_cookie_params','session_encode','session_destroy','session_decode', 'session_cache_limiter','session_cache_expire','serialize','sem_remove','sem_release','sem_get', 'sem_acquire','rtrim','rsort','round','rmdir','rewinddir', 'rewind','restore_include_path','restore_error_handler','reset','rename','register_tick_function', 'register_shutdown_function','realpath','readlink','readgzfile','readfile','readdir', 'read_exif_data','rawurlencode','rawurldecode','range','rand','rad2deg', 'quotemeta','quoted_printable_decode','putenv','proc_open','proc_close','printf', 'print_r','prev','preg_split','preg_replace_callback','preg_replace','preg_quote', 'preg_match_all','preg_match','preg_grep','pow','posix_uname','posix_ttyname', 'posix_times','posix_strerror','posix_setuid','posix_setsid','posix_setpgid','posix_setgid', 'posix_seteuid','posix_setegid','posix_mkfifo','posix_kill','posix_isatty','posix_getuid', 'posix_getsid','posix_getrlimit','posix_getpwuid','posix_getpwnam','posix_getppid','posix_getpid', 'posix_getpgrp','posix_getpgid','posix_getlogin','posix_getgroups','posix_getgrnam','posix_getgrgid', 'posix_getgid','posix_geteuid','posix_getegid','posix_getcwd','posix_get_last_error','posix_errno', 'posix_ctermid','pos','popen','pi','phpversion','phpinfo', 'phpcredits','php_uname','php_sapi_name','php_logo_guid','php_ini_scanned_files','pg_update', 'pg_untrace','pg_unescape_bytea','pg_tty','pg_trace','pg_setclientencoding','pg_set_client_encoding', 'pg_send_query','pg_select','pg_result_status','pg_result_seek','pg_result_error','pg_result', 'pg_query','pg_put_line','pg_port','pg_ping','pg_pconnect','pg_options', 'pg_numrows','pg_numfields','pg_num_rows','pg_num_fields','pg_meta_data','pg_lowrite', 'pg_lounlink','pg_loreadall','pg_loread','pg_loopen','pg_loimport','pg_loexport', 'pg_locreate','pg_loclose','pg_lo_write','pg_lo_unlink','pg_lo_tell','pg_lo_seek', 'pg_lo_read_all','pg_lo_read','pg_lo_open','pg_lo_import','pg_lo_export','pg_lo_create', 'pg_lo_close','pg_last_oid','pg_last_notice','pg_last_error','pg_insert','pg_host', 'pg_getlastoid','pg_get_result','pg_get_pid','pg_get_notify','pg_freeresult','pg_free_result', 'pg_fieldtype','pg_fieldsize','pg_fieldprtlen','pg_fieldnum','pg_fieldname','pg_fieldisnull', 'pg_field_type','pg_field_size','pg_field_prtlen','pg_field_num','pg_field_name','pg_field_is_null', 'pg_fetch_row','pg_fetch_result','pg_fetch_object','pg_fetch_assoc','pg_fetch_array','pg_fetch_all', 'pg_exec','pg_escape_string','pg_escape_bytea','pg_errormessage','pg_end_copy','pg_delete', 'pg_dbname','pg_copy_to','pg_copy_from','pg_convert','pg_connection_status','pg_connection_reset', 'pg_connection_busy','pg_connect','pg_cmdtuples','pg_close','pg_clientencoding','pg_client_encoding', 'pg_cancel_query','pg_affected_rows','pfsockopen','pclose','pathinfo','passthru', 'parse_url','parse_str','parse_ini_file','pack','overload','output_reset_rewrite_vars', 'output_add_rewrite_var','ord','openssl_x509_read','openssl_x509_parse','openssl_x509_free','openssl_x509_export_to_file', 'openssl_x509_export','openssl_x509_checkpurpose','openssl_x509_check_private_key','openssl_verify','openssl_sign','openssl_seal', 'openssl_public_encrypt','openssl_public_decrypt','openssl_private_encrypt','openssl_private_decrypt','openssl_pkey_new','openssl_pkey_get_public', 'openssl_pkey_get_private','openssl_pkey_free','openssl_pkey_export_to_file','openssl_pkey_export','openssl_pkcs7_verify','openssl_pkcs7_sign', 'openssl_pkcs7_encrypt','openssl_pkcs7_decrypt','openssl_open','openssl_get_publickey','openssl_get_privatekey','openssl_free_key', 'openssl_error_string','openssl_csr_sign','openssl_csr_new','openssl_csr_export_to_file','openssl_csr_export','openlog', 'opendir','octdec','ob_start','ob_list_handlers','ob_implicit_flush','ob_iconv_handler', 'ob_gzhandler','ob_get_status','ob_get_level','ob_get_length','ob_get_flush','ob_get_contents', 'ob_get_clean','ob_flush','ob_end_flush','ob_end_clean','ob_clean','number_format', 'nl_langinfo','nl2br','ngettext','next','natsort','natcasesort', 'mysql_unbuffered_query','mysql_thread_id','mysql_tablename','mysql_table_name','mysql_stat','mysql_selectdb', 'mysql_select_db','mysql_result','mysql_real_escape_string','mysql_query','mysql_ping','mysql_pconnect', 'mysql_numrows','mysql_numfields','mysql_num_rows','mysql_num_fields','mysql_listtables','mysql_listfields', 'mysql_listdbs','mysql_list_tables','mysql_list_processes','mysql_list_fields','mysql_list_dbs','mysql_insert_id', 'mysql_info','mysql_get_server_info','mysql_get_proto_info','mysql_get_host_info','mysql_get_client_info','mysql_freeresult', 'mysql_free_result','mysql_fieldtype','mysql_fieldtable','mysql_fieldname','mysql_fieldlen','mysql_fieldflags', 'mysql_field_type','mysql_field_table','mysql_field_seek','mysql_field_name','mysql_field_len','mysql_field_flags', 'mysql_fetch_row','mysql_fetch_object','mysql_fetch_lengths','mysql_fetch_field','mysql_fetch_assoc','mysql_fetch_array', 'mysql_escape_string','mysql_error','mysql_errno','mysql_dropdb','mysql_drop_db','mysql_dbname', 'mysql_db_query','mysql_db_name','mysql_data_seek','mysql_createdb','mysql_create_db','mysql_connect', 'mysql_close','mysql_client_encoding','mysql_affected_rows','mysql','mt_srand','mt_rand', 'mt_getrandmax','move_uploaded_file','money_format','mktime','mkdir','min', 'microtime','method_exists','metaphone','memory_get_usage','md5_file','md5', 'mbsubstr','mbstrrpos','mbstrpos','mbstrlen','mbstrcut','mbsplit', 'mbregex_encoding','mberegi_replace','mberegi','mbereg_search_setpos','mbereg_search_regs','mbereg_search_pos', 'mbereg_search_init','mbereg_search_getregs','mbereg_search_getpos','mbereg_search','mbereg_replace','mbereg_match', 'mbereg','mb_substr_count','mb_substr','mb_substitute_character','mb_strwidth','mb_strtoupper', 'mb_strtolower','mb_strrpos','mb_strpos','mb_strlen','mb_strimwidth','mb_strcut', 'mb_split','mb_send_mail','mb_regex_set_options','mb_regex_encoding','mb_preferred_mime_name','mb_parse_str', 'mb_output_handler','mb_language','mb_internal_encoding','mb_http_output','mb_http_input','mb_get_info', 'mb_eregi_replace','mb_eregi','mb_ereg_search_setpos','mb_ereg_search_regs','mb_ereg_search_pos','mb_ereg_search_init', 'mb_ereg_search_getregs','mb_ereg_search_getpos','mb_ereg_search','mb_ereg_replace','mb_ereg_match','mb_ereg', 'mb_encode_numericentity','mb_encode_mimeheader','mb_detect_order','mb_detect_encoding','mb_decode_numericentity','mb_decode_mimeheader', 'mb_convert_variables','mb_convert_kana','mb_convert_encoding','mb_convert_case','max','mail', 'magic_quotes_runtime','ltrim','lstat','long2ip','log1p','log10', 'log','localtime','localeconv','linkinfo','link','levenshtein', 'lcg_value','ksort','krsort','key_exists','key','juliantojd', 'join','jewishtojd','jdtounix','jdtojulian','jdtojewish','jdtogregorian', 'jdtofrench','jdmonthname','jddayofweek','is_writeable','is_writable','is_uploaded_file', 'is_subclass_of','is_string','is_scalar','is_resource','is_real','is_readable', 'is_object','is_numeric','is_null','is_nan','is_long','is_link', 'is_integer','is_int','is_infinite','is_float','is_finite','is_file', 'is_executable','is_double','is_dir','is_callable','is_bool','is_array', 'is_a','iptcparse','iptcembed','ip2long','intval','ini_set', 'ini_restore','ini_get_all','ini_get','ini_alter','in_array','import_request_variables', 'implode','image_type_to_mime_type','ignore_user_abort','iconv_set_encoding','iconv_get_encoding','iconv', 'i18n_mime_header_encode','i18n_mime_header_decode','i18n_ja_jp_hantozen','i18n_internal_encoding','i18n_http_output','i18n_http_input', 'i18n_discover_encoding','i18n_convert','hypot','htmlspecialchars','htmlentities','html_entity_decode', 'highlight_string','highlight_file','hexdec','hebrevc','hebrev','headers_sent', 'header','gzwrite','gzuncompress','gztell','gzseek','gzrewind', 'gzread','gzputs','gzpassthru','gzopen','gzinflate','gzgetss', 'gzgets','gzgetc','gzfile','gzeof','gzencode','gzdeflate', 'gzcompress','gzclose','gregoriantojd','gmstrftime','gmmktime','gmdate', 'glob','gettype','gettimeofday','gettext','getservbyport','getservbyname', 'getrusage','getrandmax','getprotobynumber','getprotobyname','getopt','getmyuid', 'getmypid','getmyinode','getmygid','getmxrr','getlastmod','getimagesize', 'gethostbynamel','gethostbyname','gethostbyaddr','getenv','getdate','getcwd', 'getallheaders','get_resource_type','get_required_files','get_parent_class','get_object_vars','get_meta_tags', 'get_magic_quotes_runtime','get_magic_quotes_gpc','get_loaded_extensions','get_included_files','get_include_path','get_html_translation_table', 'get_extension_funcs','get_defined_vars','get_defined_functions','get_defined_constants','get_declared_classes','get_current_user', 'get_class_vars','get_class_methods','get_class','get_cfg_var','get_browser','fwrite', 'function_exists','func_num_args','func_get_args','func_get_arg','ftruncate','ftp_systype', 'ftp_ssl_connect','ftp_size','ftp_site','ftp_set_option','ftp_rmdir','ftp_rename', 'ftp_rawlist','ftp_quit','ftp_pwd','ftp_put','ftp_pasv','ftp_nlist', 'ftp_nb_put','ftp_nb_get','ftp_nb_fput','ftp_nb_fget','ftp_nb_continue','ftp_mkdir', 'ftp_mdtm','ftp_login','ftp_get_option','ftp_get','ftp_fput','ftp_fget', 'ftp_exec','ftp_delete','ftp_connect','ftp_close','ftp_chdir','ftp_cdup', 'ftok','ftell','fstat','fsockopen','fseek','fscanf', 'frenchtojd','fread','fputs','fpassthru','fopen','fnmatch', 'fmod','flush','floor','flock','floatval','filetype', 'filesize','filepro_rowcount','filepro_retrieve','filepro_fieldwidth','filepro_fieldtype','filepro_fieldname', 'filepro_fieldcount','filepro','fileperms','fileowner','filemtime','fileinode', 'filegroup','filectime','fileatime','file_get_contents','file_exists','file', 'fgetss','fgets','fgetcsv','fgetc','fflush','feof', 'fclose','ezmlm_hash','extract','extension_loaded','expm1','explode', 'exp','exif_thumbnail','exif_tagname','exif_read_data','exif_imagetype','exec', 'escapeshellcmd','escapeshellarg','error_reporting','error_log','eregi_replace','eregi', 'ereg_replace','ereg','end','easter_days','easter_date','each', 'doubleval','dngettext','dl','diskfreespace','disk_total_space','disk_free_space', 'dirname','dir','dgettext','deg2rad','defined','define_syslog_variables', 'define','decoct','dechex','decbin','debug_zval_dump','debug_backtrace', 'deaggregate','dcngettext','dcgettext','dba_sync','dba_replace','dba_popen', 'dba_optimize','dba_open','dba_nextkey','dba_list','dba_insert','dba_handlers', 'dba_firstkey','dba_fetch','dba_exists','dba_delete','dba_close','date', 'current','ctype_xdigit','ctype_upper','ctype_space','ctype_punct','ctype_print', 'ctype_lower','ctype_graph','ctype_digit','ctype_cntrl','ctype_alpha','ctype_alnum', 'crypt','create_function','crc32','count_chars','count','cosh', 'cos','copy','convert_cyr_string','constant','connection_status','connection_aborted', 'compact','closelog','closedir','clearstatcache','class_exists','chunk_split', 'chr','chown','chop','chmod','chgrp','checkdnsrr', 'checkdate','chdir','ceil','call_user_method_array','call_user_method','call_user_func_array', 'call_user_func','cal_to_jd','cal_info','cal_from_jd','cal_days_in_month','bzwrite', 'bzread','bzopen','bzflush','bzerrstr','bzerror','bzerrno', 'bzdecompress','bzcompress','bzclose','bindtextdomain','bindec','bind_textdomain_codeset', 'bin2hex','bcsub','bcsqrt','bcscale','bcpow','bcmul', 'bcmod','bcdiv','bccomp','bcadd','basename','base_convert', 'base64_encode','base64_decode','atanh','atan2','atan','assert_options', 'assert','asort','asinh','asin','arsort','array_walk', 'array_values','array_unshift','array_unique','array_sum','array_splice','array_slice', 'array_shift','array_search','array_reverse','array_reduce','array_rand','array_push', 'array_pop','array_pad','array_multisort','array_merge_recursive','array_merge','array_map', 'array_keys','array_key_exists','array_intersect_assoc','array_intersect','array_flip','array_filter', 'array_fill','array_diff_assoc','array_diff','array_count_values','array_chunk','array_change_key_case', 'apache_setenv','apache_response_headers','apache_request_headers','apache_note','apache_lookup_uri','apache_get_version', 'apache_child_terminate','aggregation_info','aggregate_properties_by_regexp','aggregate_properties_by_list','aggregate_properties','aggregate_methods_by_regexp', 'aggregate_methods_by_list','aggregate_methods','aggregate','addslashes','addcslashes','acosh', 'acos','abs','_','echo', 'print', 'global', 'static', 'exit', 'array', 'empty', 'eval', 'isset', 'unset', 'die' ) ), 'SYMBOLS' => array( '(', ')', '[', ']', '{', '}', '!', '@', '%', '&', '*', '|', '/', '<', '>' ), 'CASE_SENSITIVE' => array( GESHI_COMMENTS => false, 1 => false, 2 => false, 3 => false, ), 'STYLES' => array( 'KEYWORDS' => array( 1 => 'color: #b1b100;', 2 => 'color: #000000; font-weight: bold;', 3 => 'color: #000066;' ), 'COMMENTS' => array( 1 => 'color: #808080; font-style: italic;', 2 => 'color: #808080; font-style: italic;', 'MULTI' => 'color: #808080; font-style: italic;' ), 'ESCAPE_CHAR' => array( 0 => 'color: #000099; font-weight: bold;' ), 'BRACKETS' => array( 0 => 'color: #66cc66;' ), 'STRINGS' => array( 0 => 'color: #ff0000;' ), 'NUMBERS' => array( 0 => 'color: #cc66cc;' ), 'METHODS' => array( 0 => 'color: #006600;' ), 'SYMBOLS' => array( 0 => 'color: #66cc66;' ), 'REGEXPS' => array( 0 => 'color: #0000ff;' ), 'SCRIPT' => array( 0 => '', 1 => '', 2 => '', 3 => '' ) ), 'URLS' => array( 1 => '', 2 => '', 3 => 'http://www.php.net/{FNAME}', 4 => '' ), 'OOLANG' => true, 'OBJECT_SPLITTER' => '->', 'REGEXPS' => array( 0 => "[\\$]{1,2}[a-zA-Z_][a-zA-Z0-9_]*" ), 'STRICT_MODE_APPLIES' => GESHI_MAYBE, 'SCRIPT_DELIMITERS' => array( 0 => array( '<?php' => '?>' ), 1 => array( '<?' => '?>' ), 2 => array( '<%' => '%>' ), 3 => array( '<script language="php">' => '</script>' ) ), 'HIGHLIGHT_STRICT_BLOCK' => array( 0 => true, 1 => true, 2 => true, 3 => true ) ); ?>
If you're remotely familiar with PHP (or even if you're not), you can see that all that a language file consists of is a glorified variable assignment. Easy! All a language file does is assign a variable $language_data. Though still, there's a lot of indices to that array... but this section is here to break each index down and explain it to you.
There are several conventions that are used in language files. For ease of use and readability, your language files should obey the following rules:
There are more notes on each convention where it may appear in the language file sections below.
This section will look at all the sections of a language file, and how they relate to the final highlighting result.
The header of a language file is the first lines with the big comment and the start of the variable $language_data:
<?php /************************************************************************************* * <name-of-language-file.php> * --------------------------------- * Author: <name> (<e-mail address>) * Copyright: (c) 2004 <name> (<website URL>) * Release Version: 1.0.0 * CVS Revision Version: $Revision: 1197 $ * Date Started: <date started> * Last Modified: $Date: 2008-06-08 20:03:54 +0200 (So, 08 Jun 2008) $ * * <name-of-language> language file for GeSHi. * * <any-comments...> * * CHANGES * ------- * <date-of-release> (1.0.0) * - First Release * * TODO (updated <date-of-release>) * ------------------------- * <things-to-do> * ************************************************************************************* * * This file is part of GeSHi. * * GeSHi is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify * it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by * the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or * (at your option) any later version. * * GeSHi is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, * but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of * MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the * GNU General Public License for more details. * * You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License * along with GeSHi; if not, write to the Free Software * Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA * ************************************************************************************/ $language_data = array (
The parts in angle brackets are the parts that you change for your language file. Everything else *must* remain the same!
Here are the parts you should change:
Everything should remain the same, including $Revision: 1197 $ and $Date: 2008-06-08 20:03:54 +0200 (So, 08 Jun 2008) $ (I know these may look funny but they have their purpose for those of you who don't know about SVN).
Also: I'm not sure about the copyright on a new language file. I'm not a lawyer, could someone contact me about whether the copyright for a new language file should be exclusivly the authors, or joint with me (if included in a GeSHi release)?
Here is an example from the php language file of the first indices:
'LANG_NAME' => 'PHP',
'COMMENT_SINGLE' => array(1 => '//', 2 => '#'),
'COMMENT_MULTI' => array('/*' => '*/'),
'CASE_KEYWORDS' => GESHI_CAPS_NO_CHANGE,
'QUOTEMARKS' => array("'", '"'),
'ESCAPE_CHAR' => '\\',
The first indices are the first few lines of a language file before the KEYWORDS index. These indices specify:
Keywords will make up the bulk of a language file. In this part you add keywords for your language, including inbuilt functions, data types, predefined constants etc etc.
Here's a (shortened) example from the php language file:
'KEYWORDS' => array( 1 => array( 'include', 'require', 'include_once', 'require_once', 'for', 'foreach', 'as', 'if', 'elseif', 'else', 'while', 'do', 'endwhile', 'endif', 'switch', 'case', 'endswitch', 'return', 'break' ), 2 => array( 'null', '__LINE__', '__FILE__', 'false', '<?php', '?>', '<?', '<script language=', '</script>', 'true', 'var', 'default', 'function', 'class', 'new', '__FUNCTION__', '__CLASS__', '__METHOD__', 'PHP_VERSION', 'PHP_OS', 'DEFAULT_INCLUDE_PATH', 'PEAR_INSTALL_DIR', 'PEAR_EXTENSION_DIR', 'PHP_EXTENSION_DIR', 'PHP_BINDIR', 'PHP_LIBDIR', 'PHP_DATADIR', 'PHP_SYSCONFDIR', 'PHP_LOCALSTATEDIR', 'PHP_CONFIG_FILE_PATH', 'PHP_OUTPUT_HANDLER_START', 'PHP_OUTPUT_HANDLER_CONT', 'PHP_OUTPUT_HANDLER_END', 'E_ERROR', 'E_WARNING', 'E_PARSE', 'E_NOTICE', 'E_CORE_ERROR', 'E_CORE_WARNING', 'E_COMPILE_ERROR', 'E_COMPILE_WARNING', 'E_USER_ERROR', 'E_USER_WARNING', 'E_USER_NOTICE', 'E_ALL' ), 3 => array( 'zlib_get_coding_type','zend_version','zend_logo_guid','yp_order','yp_next', 'yp_match','yp_master','yp_get_default_domain','yp_first','yp_errno','yp_err_string', 'yp_cat','yp_all','xml_set_unparsed_entity_decl_handler','xml_set_start_namespace_decl_handler','xml_set_processing_instruction_handler','xml_set_object', 'xml_set_notation_decl_handler','xml_set_external_entity_ref_handler','xml_set_end_namespace_decl_handler','xml_set_element_handler','xml_set_default_handler','xml_set_character_data_handler', 'xml_parser_set_option','xml_parser_get_option','xml_parser_free','xml_parser_create_ns','xml_parser_create','xml_parse_into_struct' ) ),
You can see that the index 'KEYWORDS' refers to an array of arrays, indexed by positive integers. In each array, there are some keywords (in the actual php language file there is in fact many more keywords in the array indexed by 3). Here are some points to note about these keywords:
So you've put all the keywords for your language in? Now for a breather before we style them :). Symbols define what symbols your language uses, these are things like colons, brackets/braces, and other such general punctuation, and case sensitivity alludes to the previous section: here you can set which keyword groups are case sensitive.
As of GeSHi version 1.0.7.21 the symbols section is used in two ways:
Here's an example for flat symbol usage
'SYMBOLS' => array(
'(', ')', '[', ']', '{', '}', '!', '@', '|', '&', '+', '-', '*', '/', '%', '=', '<', '>'
),
'CASE_SENSITIVE' => array(
GESHI_COMMENTS => false,
1 => false,
2 => false,
3 => false,
),
which is not too different from the newly introduced group usage shown below:
'SYMBOLS' => array(
0 => array('(', ')', '[', ']', '{', '}'),
1 => array('!', '@', '|', '&'),
2 => array('+', '-', '*', '/', '%'),
3 => array('=', '<', '>')
),
'CASE_SENSITIVE' => array(
GESHI_COMMENTS => false,
1 => false,
2 => false,
3 => false,
),
This is the fun part! Here you get to choose the colours, fonts, backgrounds and anything else you'd like for your language file.
Here's an example:
'STYLES' => array( 'KEYWORDS' => array( 1 => 'color: #b1b100;', 2 => 'color: #000000; font-weight: bold;', 3 => 'color: #000066;' ), 'COMMENTS' => array( 1 => 'color: #808080; font-style: italic;', 2 => 'color: #808080; font-style: italic;', 'MULTI' => 'color: #808080; font-style: italic;' ), 'ESCAPE_CHAR' => array( 0 => 'color: #000099; font-weight: bold;' ), 'BRACKETS' => array( 0 => 'color: #66cc66;' ), 'STRINGS' => array( 0 => 'color: #ff0000;' ), 'NUMBERS' => array( 0 => 'color: #cc66cc;' ), 'METHODS' => array( 0 => 'color: #006600;' ), 'SYMBOLS' => array( 0 => 'color: #66cc66;' ), 'REGEXPS' => array( 0 => 'color: #0000ff;' ), 'SCRIPT' => array( 0 => '', 1 => '', 2 => '', 3 => '' ) ),
Note that all style rules should end with a semi-colon! This is important: GeSHi may add extra rules to the rules you specify (and will do so if a user tries to change your styles on the fly), so the last semi-colon in any stylesheet rule is important.
All strings here should contain valid stylesheet declarations (it's also find to have the empty string).
This section lets you specify a url to visit for each keyword group. Useful for pointing functions at their online manual entries.
Here is an example:
'URLS' => array(
1 => '',
2 => '',
3 => 'http://www.php.net/{FNAME}',
4 => ''
),
The indices of this array correspond to the keyword groups you specified in the keywords section. The string {FNAME} marks where the name of the function is substituted in. So for the example above, if the keyword being highlighted is "echo", then the keyword will be a URL pointing to http://www.php.net/echo. Because some languages (Java!) don't keep a uniform URL for functions/classes, you may have trouble in creating a URL for that language (though look in the java language file for a novel solution to it's problem)
Now we're reaching the most little-used section of a language file, which includes such goodies as object orientation support and context support. GeSHi can highlight methods and data fields of objects easily, all you need to do is to tell it to do so and what the "splitter" is between object/method etc.
Here's an example:
'OOLANG' => true, 'OBJECT_SPLITTER' => '->',
If your language has object orientation, the value of 'OOLANG' is true, otherwise it is false. If it is object orientated, in the 'OBJECT_SPLITTER' value you put the htmlentities() version of the "splitter" between objects and methods/fields. If it is not, then make this the empty string.
Regular expressions are a good way to catch any other lexic that fits certain rules but can't be listed as a keyword. A good example is variables in PHP: variables always start with either one or two "$" signs, then alphanumeric characters (a simplification). This is easy to catch with regular expressions.
And new to version 1.0.2, there is an advanced way of using regular expressions to catch certain things but highlight only part of those things. This is particularly useful for languages like XML.
Regular expressions use the PCRE syntax (perl-style), not the ereg() style!
Here is an example (this time the PHP file merged with the XML file):
0 => array(
GESHI_SEARCH => '(((xml:)?[a-z\-]+))(=)',
GESHI_REPLACE => '\\1',
GESHI_MODIFIERS => '',
GESHI_BEFORE => '',
GESHI_AFTER => '\\4'
),
1 => array(
GESHI_SEARCH => '(>/?[a-z0-9]*(>)?)',
GESHI_REPLACE => '\\1',
GESHI_MODIFIERS => '',
GESHI_BEFORE => '',
GESHI_AFTER => ''
),
2 => "[\\$]{1,2}[a-zA-Z_][a-zA-Z0-9_]*"
As you can see there are two formats. One is the "simple" format used in GeSHi < 1.0.2, and the other is a more advanced syntax. Firstly, the simple syntax:
And now for advanced syntax, which gives you much more control over exactly what is highlighted:
Is that totally confusing? Here's the test for if you're an android or not: If you found that perfectly understandable then you're an android ;). Here's a better example:
Let's say that I'm making a language, and variables in this language always start with a dollar sign ($), are always written in lowercase letters and always end with an ampersand (&). eg:
$foo& = 'bar'
I want to highlight only the text between the $ and the &. How do I do that? With simple regular expressions I can't, but with advanced, it's relatively easy:
1 => array( GESHI_SEARCH => '(\$)([a-z]+)(&)', // search for a dollar sign, then one or more of the characters a-z, then an ampersand GESHI_REPLACE => '\\2', // we wanna highlight the characters, which are in the second bracketed group GESHI_MODIFIERS => '', // no modifiers, since we're not matching the "anything" regex GESHI_BEFORE => '\\1', // before the highlighted characters should be the first bracketed group (always a dollar sign in this example) GESHI_AFTER => '\\3' // after the highlighted characters should be the third bracketed group (always an ampersand in this example) ),
So if someone tried to highlight using my language, all cases of $foo& would turn into:
$<span style="color: blue;">foo</span>&
(which would of course be viewed in a browser to get something like $foo&)
For languages like HTML, it's good if we can highlight a tag (like <a> for example). But how do we stop every single "a" in the source getting highlighted? What about for attributes? If I've got the word "colspan" in my text I don't want that highlighted! So how do you tell GeSHi not to highlight in that case? You do it with "Strict Blocks".
Here is an example:
'STRICT_MODE_APPLIES' => GESHI_MAYBE, 'SCRIPT_DELIMITERS' => array( 0 => array( '<?php' => '?>' ), 1 => array( '<?' => '?>' ), 2 => array( '<%' => '%>' ), 3 => array( '<script language="php">' => '</script>' ) ), 'HIGHLIGHT_STRICT_BLOCK' => array( 0 => true, 1 => true, 2 => true, 3 => true )
What is strict mode? Strict mode says that highlighting only occurs inside the blocks you specify. You can see from the example above that highlighting will only occur if the source is inside <?php ... ?> (though note the GESHI_MAYBE!). Here are some points about strict highlighting:
The delimiters should be in reverse alphabetical order. Note that in the above example, <?php comes before <?.
All language files should end with:
); ?>
I'm afraid I have been lying for a little while about this now! Since 1.0.7 I have been including a phpdoc API for the sourcecode in the api directory, but have forgot to update the documentation! However, it is available, and may assist you in coding, especially for plugin coders.
That's all, folks!
I've improved the documentation greatly from version 1.0.1, but there may still be problems with it, or it may still be confusing for you. Or perhaps I was just plain wrong about one point! If so, contact me and I'll do my best to sort it out.
In case you were wondering, I've finished development of the 1.0.X thread of GeSHi. The only releases I'll make in this thread will be of the bug-fix/add language files type. In particular, version 1.0.2 was a "concept" release - testing how far I could take the highlighting idea (as well as ideas from others).
I'm planning a code rewrite for 1.2.X, which will be based on a new engine - a "psuedo-tokenizer" engine. Hopefully it will massively reduce the server load and time taken (by almost eliminating regexps), while providing superior highlighting. But fear not! The interface and method names should all remain the same ^_^ (though I can't say the same for language files!)
And finally, a couple of people have been asking me: how did you generate that documentation? The amazing answer is: my brain. And yes, it took a long time, and I don't reccommend doing it this way. And yes, you can borrow the styles if you like, though flick me an e-mail if you do.
Anyway, enough blather from me. Get GeSHi working for you already! :D
Nigel McNie nigel@geshi.org http://qbnz.com/highlighter/