PHP syntax highlighting

php syntax-highlighting
Konrad Rudolph picture Konrad Rudolph · Oct 23, 2008 · Viewed 30k times · Source

I'm searching for a PHP syntax highlighting engine that can be customized (i.e. I can provide my own tokenizers for new languages) and that can handle several languages simultaneously (i.e. on the same output page). This engine has to work well together with CSS classes, i.e. it should format the output by inserting <span> elements that are adorned with class attributes. Bonus points for an extensible schema.

I do not search for a client-side syntax highlighting script (JavaScript).

So far, I'm stuck with GeSHi. Unfortunately, GeSHi fails abysmally for several reasons. The main reason is that the different language files define completely different, inconsistent styles. I've worked hours trying to refactor the different language definitions down to a common denominator but since most definition files are in themselves quite bad, I'd finally like to switch.

Ideally, I'd like to have an API similar to CodeRay, Pygments or the JavaScript dp.SyntaxHighlighter.

Clarification:

I'm looking for a code highlighting software written in PHP, not for PHP (since I need to use it from inside PHP).

Answer

Konrad Rudolph picture Konrad Rudolph · May 4, 2009

Since no existing tool satisfied my needs, I wrote my own. Lo and behold:

Hyperlight

Usage is extremely easy: just use

 <?php hyperlight($code, 'php'); ?>

to highlight code. Writing new language definitions is relatively easy, too – using regular expressions and a powerful but simple state machine. By the way, I still need a lot of definitions so feel free to contribute.

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