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Most editors with syntax highlighting allow different colors and text styles to be given to dozens of different lexical sub-elements of syntax. These include keywords, comments, control-flow statements, variables, and other elements. Programmers often heavily customize their settings in an attempt to
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are visually distinct. This feature is also employed in many programming related contexts (such as programming manuals), either in the form of colorful books or online websites to make understanding code snippets easier for readers. Highlighting does not affect the meaning of the text itself; it is
633:. For example, semantic highlighting may give local variables unique distinct colors to improve the comprehensibility of code. In 2014 the idea of colored local variables was further popularized due to a blog post by Evan Brooks, and after that, the idea was transferred to other popular IDEs like
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for each possible language. This can result in a text rendering system displaying somewhat inaccurate syntax highlighting and in some cases performing slowly. A solution used by text editors to overcome this problem is not always parsing the whole file but rather just the visible area, sometimes
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Syntax highlighting is one strategy to improve the readability and context of the text; especially for code that spans several pages. The reader can easily ignore large sections of comments or code, depending on what they are looking for. Syntax highlighting also helps programmers find errors in
136:
evaluated the effects of syntax highlighting on the comprehension of short programs, finding that the presence of syntax highlighting significantly reduces the time taken for a programmer to internalise the semantics of a program. Additionally, data gathered from an eye-tracker during the study
104:
188:, or the text editor can automatically recognize it based on the file extension or by scanning contents of the file. This automatic language detection presents potential problems. For example, a user may want to edit a document containing:
565:(ECS) peripheral, released in 1983. It would highlight different elements of BASIC programs and was implemented in an attempt to make it easier for beginners, especially children, to start writing code. Later, the Live Parsing Editor (
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Some text editors can also export the coloured markup in a format that is suitable for printing or for importing into word-processing and other kinds of text-formatting software; for instance as a HTML, colorized LaTeX,
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is another important feature with many popular editors. This makes it simple to see if a brace has been left out or locate the match of the brace the cursor is on by highlighting the pair in a different color.
617:
On the other hand, the editor often displays code during its creation, while it is incomplete or incorrect, and the strict parsers (like ones used in compilers) would fail to parse the code most of the time.
75:, in different colours and fonts according to the category of terms. This feature facilitates writing in a structured language such as a programming language or a markup language as both structures and
206:
a language that differs from the file type (for example when editing source code in an extension-less file in an editor that uses file extensions to detect the language).
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or "engines" that can be used in other applications, but are not complete programs in themselves, for example the
Generic Syntax Highlighter (GeSHi) extension for
625:(in contrast to text editors) perform full language parsing which results in very accurate understanding of code. An extension of syntax highlighting was called
87:, since the highlights are not part of the text meaning, but serve to reinforce it. Some editors also integrate syntax highlighting with other features, such as
740:
591:(October 10, 1985) recognized Pascal syntax as it was typed and used font changes (e.g., bold for keywords) to highlight syntax on the monochrome
561:
In 1982, Anita H. Klock and Jan B. Chodak filed a patent for the first known syntax highlighting system, which was used in the
Intellivision's
837:
895:
715:
952:
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226:, some editors also display certain syntactical elements in more visually pleasing ways, for example by replacing a pointer operator like
278:/* Hello World */ #include <stdlib.h> #include <stdio.h> int main() { printf("Hello World\n"); return 0; }
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facilities, and unlike modern editors with syntax highlighting, actually made it impossible to create syntactically incorrect programs.
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622:
554:. One of the first such editors for code was Wilfred Hansen's 1969 code editor, Emily. It provided advanced language-independent
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suggested that syntax highlighting enables programmers to pay less attention to standard syntactic components such as keywords.
31:
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a language that is not recognized (for example when editing source code for an obscure or relatively new programming language),
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In these cases, it is not clear what language to use, and a document may not be highlighted or be highlighted incorrectly.
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For editors that support more than one language, the user can usually specify the language of the text, such as
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capability allowed user-supplied parsers to be added to the editor, for text, programs, data file, etc. On
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at the beginning is also highlighted in a specific manner to distinguish it from working code.
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Jim D'Anjou; Sherry Shavor; Scott
Fairbrother; Dan Kehn; John Kellerman; Pat McCarthy (2005).
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870:
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162:
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IBM Journal of
Research and Development, Vol 31, No. 1, IBM Reprint order number G322-0151
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231:
64:
37:
966:
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Proceedings of the 26th Annual
Conference of the Psychology of Programming Interest Group
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show as much useful information as possible without making the code difficult to read.
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121:
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88:
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clues like /italics/, *boldface*, or _underline_ in source code comments by an actual
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634:
823:
Mattel
Intellivision: Intellivision Computer Module Owner's Guide (1983)(Mattel)(US)
891:
666:
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92:
76:
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Hansen, Wilfred J. (1971). "User engineering principles for interactive systems".
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17:
953:"2009 blog post on Semantic Highlighting introduced in KDevelop by David Nolden"
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52:
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scanning backwards in the text up to a limited number of lines for "syncing".
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Some text editors and code formatting tools perform syntax highlighting using
197:
158:
995:"Github page of a plugin which implements semantic highlighting for Xcode"
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version of its syntax highlighting. There are several syntax highlighting
30:
For syntax highlighting on
Knowledge (XXG) and other MediaWiki wikis, see
838:"Intellivision Classic Video Game System / Entertainment Computer System"
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630:
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Color in a user interface is less useful if the user has some degree of
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The ideas of syntax highlighting overlap significantly with those of
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in 1985 was one of the first to use color syntax highlighting. Its
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is much easier because of the contrasting color of the text.
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in source code by an actual arrow symbol (→), or changing
981:"Visual Studio Magazine article on semantic highlighting"
764:
Proceedings of the Fall Joint
Computer Conference FJCC 39
733:"The impact of syntax colouring on program comprehension"
95:, as aids to editing which are external to the language.
967:"2014 blog post on Semantic Highlighting by Evan Brooks"
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and automatically indented code to match its structure.
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in a different color. Consequently, spotting a missing
27:
Tool of editors for programming, scripting, and markup
264:
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in 2009 by David Nolden for the open-source C++ IDE
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more than one language (for example when editing an
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Highlighting the effect of missing delimiter (after
116:their program. For example, most editors highlight
519:In the C++ example, the editor has recognized the
358:// Create "window_count" Window objects:
573:operating system for the computerization of the
349:Below is another snippet of syntax highlighted
871:"LEXX – A programmable structured editor"
8:
801:Syntax error correction method and apparatus
710:(2nd ed.). Boston: Addison-Wesley.
144:
71:. The feature displays text, especially
779:"Emily - An Editor for Structured Text"
698:
743:from the original on 24 September 2015
934:. Mansfield Software Group, Inc. 2012
708:The Java developer's guide to Eclipse
7:
896:"A Trio of Historical Recollections"
132:A study published in the conference
32:Knowledge (XXG):Syntax highlighting
25:
926:"KEDIT Language Definition Files"
83:Syntax highlighting is a form of
80:intended only for human readers.
621:Some modern, language-specific
902:(Mailing list). Archived from
1:
609:) rather than implementing a
563:Entertainment Computer System
196:file that contains embedded
152:supports syntax highlighting
1021:Programming language syntax
766:. AFIPS. pp. 5623–532.
254:Below is a comparison of a
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842:www.intellivisionlives.com
662:Comparison of text editors
29:
1026:User interface techniques
576:Oxford English Dictionary
687:Solarized (color scheme)
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283:
276:
731:Sarkar, Advait (2015).
627:"semantic highlighting"
552:syntax-directed editors
546:History and limitations
141:Support in text editors
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112:
45:
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40:
1031:Text editor features
1003:. 14 September 2022.
658:Programming features
271:Syntax highlighting
607:Regular expressions
268:Standard rendering
67:languages, such as
49:Syntax highlighting
44:syntax highlighting
672:Secondary notation
569:) written for the
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99:Practical benefits
85:secondary notation
46:
955:. 8 January 2009.
777:Hansen, Wilfred.
717:978-0-321-30502-2
593:compact Macintosh
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319:"Hello World
286:/* Hello World */
224:syntax decoration
55:that is used for
18:Syntax decoration
16:(Redirected from
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969:. 17 April 2017.
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850:. Retrieved
846:the original
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806:, retrieved
804:, 1982-10-29
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747:27 September
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667:Indent style
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109:watch='false
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93:code folding
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73:source code
57:programming
1015:Categories
938:2016-04-07
892:Allen, Dan
852:2018-04-12
808:2018-04-12
693:References
603:heuristics
412:shared_ptr
244:underlined
198:JavaScript
159:PostScript
739:: 49–58.
167:libraries
122:delimiter
61:scripting
869:(1987).
741:Archived
652:See also
631:KDevelop
538:. The
521:keywords
295:#include
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250:Examples
240:boldface
900:mpw-dev
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784:17 June
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