Help:Syntax Highlighting

From Rosetta Code

Rosetta Code supports syntax highlighting of code using Pygments.

How to highlight

Prefix your code with <syntaxhighlight lang="foo"> (where foo is the language to use for highlighting) and suffix it with </syntaxhighlight>. Be sure not to insert extra space between the tags and your code. For example, here's how you'd highlight a C program:

<syntaxhighlight lang="c">int main (int argc, char* argv[])
{
  return 0;
}</syntaxhighlight>

That markup would be rendered thus:

int main (int argc, char* argv[])
{
  return 0;
}

Supported languages

Make sure to use the standard identifier for your language even if Pygments doesn't know how to highlight it yet. If your language isn't in the list, make up an identifier (consisting entirely of lowercase alphanumeric ASCII characters; make it short yet unambiguous) and add it to the list. That way, if your language is supported in a future release of Pygments, Rosetta Code can immediately benefit.

Also, if it hasn't been done yet, add the identifier to your language's category page. Use the "tags" parameter in the language template to specify it (e.g. "tags=foo" for the example above). If you find that your language already has a tag listed there that isn't in the Village Pump post, add it to the post as well.

If you'd like to, it's not difficult to write a new language definition for Pygments. See Write your own lexer for more on adding support for a new language.

Note: There will likely be significant lag between a new lexer being added to Pygments, and the new syntax highlighting being available on Rosetta Code.

Once the new lexer is added to Pygments, it won't be available until Pygments has a release.

We would then need to wait for MediaWiki to bump the Pygments version in the package and release a new version.

Then we would need to wait for Miraheze to update to the version of MediaWiki software that includes the updated Pygments package.

A multiple month delay is expected, a several year delay is not out of the question.

Recommended language tag usage

Rather than trying to keep disparate lists in sync, refer directly to the official Pygments documentation.

Official language list

In general, the language parameter should be the lowercase language name bounded by double quotes.