MediaWiki/Syntax highlighting

Writing good code follows good coding standards. On top of coding standards, syntax highlighting reveals the code making it easier to read (and learn).

There is a Generic Syntax Highlighter or GeSHi for short which is available as a Debian package (sudo apt-get install php-geshi). However, if using Brion Vibber's extension (which is better than this alternate GeSHi Code Tag extension because Brion's just registers one new tag: 'source' and uses the extension parameter passing available since MW 1.5) you will need to get the more recent source code download of GeSHi.

Installation

1. Download GeSHi source
2. Download MW extension source
3. Make sure MW extension includes geshi.php
4. Add include to LocalSettings

Usage

Just use the <source> tag with the lang parameter to define the programming language. Other optional parameters are avaliable too. See the example below.

Parameters

• lang: Defines the language
• line: Corresponds to enable_line_numbers method on GeSHi
• start: Corresponds to start_line_numbers_at method on GeSHi
• enclose: Corresponds to set_header_type method on GeSHi
• strict: Corresponds to enable_strict_mode method on GeSHi

The effect and usage of these parameters can be consulted in GeSHi's documentation.

Since r22246, you can override the colors using [[MediaWiki:GeSHi.css]].

Example

 1 <?php
 2 if( !defined( 'MEDIAWIKI' ) )
 3         die();
 4 
 5 $wgExtensionFunctions[] = 'syntaxHighlightSetup';
 6 $wgExtensionCredits['parserhook']['SyntaxHighlight_GeSHi'] = array(
 7         'name'          => 'SyntaxHighlight',
 8         'author'        => 'Brion Vibber',
 9         'description'   => 'Provides syntax highlighting using [http://qbnz.com/highlighter/ GeSHi Higlighter]',
10         'url'           => 'http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:SyntaxHighlight_GeSHi',
11 );
12 $wgHooks['LoadAllMessages'][] = 'syntaxHighlightLoadMessages';
13 
14 function syntaxHighlightSetup() {
15         global $wgParser;
16         $wgParser->setHook( 'source', 'syntaxHighlightHook' );
17 }
18 
19 ?>

Supported Languages

These are the languages known by GeSHi that can be used in the lang parameter:

actionscript ada apache applescript asm asp autoit bash blitzbasic bnf c caddcl cadlisp cfdg cfm cpp-qt cpp csharp css-gen.cfg css

c_mac d delphi diff div dos eiffel fortran freebasic gml groovy html4strict idl ini inno io java java5 javascript latex

lisp lua matlab mirc mpasm mysql nsis objc ocaml-brief ocaml oobas oracle8 pascal perl php-brief php plsql python qbasic reg

robots ruby sas scheme sdlbasic smalltalk smarty sql tcl text thinbasic tsql vb vbnet vhdl visualfoxpro winbatch xml z80

See documentation for the latest list of additions

Documentation

See http://qbnz.com/highlighter/geshi-doc.html for the extensive documentation. GeSHi is used in a number of other software projects like

• Dokuwiki - An advanced wiki engine
• gtk.php.net - Their manual uses GeSHi for syntax highlighting
• WordPress - A powerful blogging system*
• PHP-Fusion - A constantly evovling CMS
• SQL Manager - A Postgres DBAL
• Mambo - A popular open source CMS
• MediaWiki - A leader in Wikis*
• TikiWiki - A megapowerful Wiki/CMS
• TikiPro - Another powerful Wiki based on Tikiwiki
• RWeb - A site-building tool

If you want to use it in OASIS projects besides this wiki, then start with the documentation.

PHP is the HyperText Preprocessor = the most popular programming language for the web

Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards = a global standards organization