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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
622:. 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
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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
93:
177:, 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:
554:(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.
606:
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.
64:, 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
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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
614:(in contrast to text editors) perform full language parsing which results in very accurate understanding of code. An extension of syntax highlighting was called
76:, 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
729:
580:(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
550:
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
826:
884:
704:
941:
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215:, some editors also display certain syntactical elements in more visually pleasing ways, for example by replacing a pointer operator like
267:/* 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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611:
543:. 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.
20:
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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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859:
665:
588:
540:
151:
867:
IBM Journal of
Research and Development, Vol 31, No. 1, IBM Reprint order number G322-0151
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220:
53:
26:
955:
726:
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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110:
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77:
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clues like /italics/, *boldface*, or _underline_ in source code comments by an actual
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Mattel
Intellivision: Intellivision Computer Module Owner's Guide (1983)(Mattel)(US)
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655:
544:
81:
65:
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788:
751:
Hansen, Wilfred J. (1971). "User engineering principles for interactive systems".
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942:"2009 blog post on Semantic Highlighting introduced in KDevelop by David Nolden"
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41:
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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
186:
147:
984:"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
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For syntax highlighting on
Knowledge (XXG) and other MediaWiki wikis, see
827:"Intellivision Classic Video Game System / Entertainment Computer System"
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619:
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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
970:"Visual Studio Magazine article on semantic highlighting"
753:
Proceedings of the Fall Joint
Computer Conference FJCC 39
722:"The impact of syntax colouring on program comprehension"
84:, as aids to editing which are external to the language.
956:"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
16:
Tool of editors for programming, scripting, and markup
253:
618:
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
105:their program. For example, most editors highlight
508:In the C++ example, the editor has recognized the
347:// Create "window_count" Window objects:
562:operating system for the computerization of the
338:Below is another snippet of syntax highlighted
860:"LEXX – A programmable structured editor"
8:
790:Syntax error correction method and apparatus
699:(2nd ed.). Boston: Addison-Wesley.
133:
60:. The feature displays text, especially
768:"Emily - An Editor for Structured Text"
687:
732:from the original on 24 September 2015
923:. Mansfield Software Group, Inc. 2012
697:The Java developer's guide to Eclipse
7:
885:"A Trio of Historical Recollections"
121:A study published in the conference
21:Knowledge (XXG):Syntax highlighting
14:
915:"KEDIT Language Definition Files"
72:Syntax highlighting is a form of
69:intended only for human readers.
610:Some modern, language-specific
891:(Mailing list). Archived from
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598:) rather than implementing a
552:Entertainment Computer System
185:file that contains embedded
141:supports syntax highlighting
1010:Programming language syntax
755:. AFIPS. pp. 5623–532.
243:Below is a comparison of a
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831:www.intellivisionlives.com
651:Comparison of text editors
18:
1015:User interface techniques
565:Oxford English Dictionary
676:Solarized (color scheme)
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272:
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720:Sarkar, Advait (2015).
616:"semantic highlighting"
541:syntax-directed editors
535:History and limitations
130:Support in text editors
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34:
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29:
1020:Text editor features
992:. 14 September 2022.
647:Programming features
260:Syntax highlighting
596:Regular expressions
257:Standard rendering
56:languages, such as
38:Syntax highlighting
33:syntax highlighting
661:Secondary notation
558:) written for the
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88:Practical benefits
74:secondary notation
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944:. 8 January 2009.
766:Hansen, Wilfred.
706:978-0-321-30502-2
582:compact Macintosh
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335:
308:"Hello World
275:/* Hello World */
213:syntax decoration
44:that is used for
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958:. 17 April 2017.
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78:spell checking
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66:syntax errors
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795:, retrieved
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1004:Categories
927:2016-04-07
881:Allen, Dan
841:2018-04-12
797:2018-04-12
682:References
592:heuristics
401:shared_ptr
233:underlined
187:JavaScript
148:PostScript
728:: 49–58.
156:libraries
111:delimiter
50:scripting
858:(1987).
730:Archived
641:See also
620:KDevelop
527:. The
510:keywords
284:#include
278:#include
239:Examples
229:boldface
889:mpw-dev
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773:17 June
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