Extension:SyntaxHighlight GeSHi

This extension is bundled with MediaWiki 1.21 and above. Thus you do not have to download it again, however you still need to enable the extension.

MediaWiki extensions manual

SyntaxHighlight_GeSHi Release status: stable
Implementation	Tag
Description	Allows source code to be syntax highlighted on the wiki pages
Author(s)	Brion Vibber, Tim Starling and Rob Church
Latest version	continuous updates
MediaWiki	1.24.+ (older versions compatible with MW 1.11.+ are available)
Database changes	No
License	GPL-2.0+
Download	Download snapshot (Git master) Git [?]: repo summary browse file tree commit history README
Parameters $wgSyntaxHighlightDefaultLang $wgSyntaxHighlightKeywordLinks
Tags <syntaxhighlight>
Hooks used ContentGetParserOutput ParserFirstCallInit ExtensionTypes
Translate the SyntaxHighlight GeSHi extension if it is available at translatewiki.net
Check usage and version matrix; code metrics
Bugs: list open list all report

The SyntaxHighlight GeSHi extension allows to display formatted source code with the <syntaxhighlight> tag.

This extension also adds coloring according to the code language settings. Like the <pre> tags and the <poem> tags, the tags shows the coding exactly as it was typed, preserving white space.

This extension also can create line numbers.

Usage

On the wiki page, you can now use "syntaxhighlight" elements:

<syntaxhighlight lang="php">
<?php
    $v = "string";    // sample initialization
?>
html text
<?
    echo $v;         // end of php code
?>
</syntaxhighlight>

shows:

<?php
    $v = "string";    // sample initialization
?>
html text
<?
    echo $v;         // end of php code
?>

Alternative <source> tag

Before rev:50696, the extension used the tag <source>. This is still supported, but <syntaxhighlight> avoids conflicts if your source code itself contains <source> (for example XML).

Parameters

lang="name"

Defines what programming language the source code is using. This affects how the extension highlights the source code. See the section "Supported languages" in this page for details of supported languages.

line="GESHI_NORMAL_LINE_NUMBERS|GESHI_FANCY_LINE_NUMBERS"

Type of line numbering to use. If you do not provide this parameter, then lines will not be numbered. Corresponds to the enable_line_numbers flag in GeSHi.

line

Equivalent to line="GESHI_FANCY_LINE_NUMBERS"

line start="n"

Use together with the parameter "line". Define the start number of the line. If you type line start="55", it will start counting at 55, then 56, 57, 58 and so on. Corresponds to start_line_numbers_at method on GeSHi

highlight="n"

Specifies which line is highlighted. Note that the parameter line start="??" doesn't affect how it counts the lines.

enclose="??"

Specifies what container is used to enclose the source code. Takes values "pre" (default value), "div", "none". Corresponds to set_header_type method on GeSHi. Choosing "div" will cause text to wrap, which is helpful if text is extending off the edge of the screen, causing horizontal scrolling.

strict

Type the name of the parameter to enable the strict mode. 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.

More Usage

When line numbering is added with line, long code lines will be wrapped. See the example below. When text is the selected language, and numbering is used, the behaviour resembles the use of pre tags with numbering and long-line wrapping.

The following example shows how to color an HTML code listing:

<syntaxhighlight lang="html4strict" line start="100" highlight="5" enclose="div">
HTML module goes here...
</syntaxhighlight>

A typical result is just:

100. <!--This is a comment. Comments are not displayed in the browser-->
101. <table align=center style="background: ivory;color:maroon;font-style:italic;font-family:arial;font-weight:bold;font-size:10pt;">
102. <tr><th> Heading 1 </th><th> Heading 2 </th></tr>
103. <tr>
104. <td style="padding:10px;"> This is cell 1 text </td>
105. <td style="padding:10px;"> This is cell 2 text </td>
106. </tr>
107. </table>

Supported languages

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

Note that installed GeSHi version (can be revealed by previewing e.g. <syntaxhighlight lang="-"></syntaxhighlight>) might not be the most recent version; see bugzilla:10967 for Wikimedia sites.

The GeSHi sources for each language can be found in VCS on SourceForge. Remember to go and select the version that the MediaWiki installation uses.

Code	Language
abap	ABAP
actionscript	ActionScript
ada	Ada
apache	Apache Configuration
applescript	AppleScript
asm	Assembly
asp	Active Server Pages (ASP)
autoit	AutoIt
bash	Bash
basic4gl	Basic4GL
bf	Brainfuck
blitzbasic	Blitz BASIC
bnf	Backus-Naur Form
c	C
c_mac	C (Mac)
caddcl	AutoCAD DCL
cadlisp	AutoLISP
cfdg	CFDG
cfm	ColdFusion Markup Language
cil	Common Intermediate Language (CIL)
cobol	COBOL
cpp-qt	C++ (Qt toolkit)
cpp	C++
csharp	C#
css	Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)
d	D
delphi	Delphi
diff	Diff
div	DIV
dos	DOS batch file
dot	DOT
eiffel	Eiffel
fortran	Fortran
freebasic	FreeBASIC
gambas	Gambas
genero	Genero
gettext	GNU internationalization (i18n) library
glsl	OpenGL Shading Language (GLSL)
gml	Game Maker Language (GML)
gnuplot	gnuplot
groovy	Groovy
haskell	Haskell
Haxe	Haxe
hq9plus	HQ9+
html4strict	HTML
html5	HTML5
idl	Uno IDL
ini	INI
inno	Inno
intercal	INTERCAL
io	Io
java	Java
java5	Java(TM) 2 Platform Standard Edition 5.0
javascript	JavaScript
kixtart	KiXtart
klonec	Klone C
klonecpp	Klone C++
latex	LaTeX
lisp	Lisp
lolcode	LOLCODE
lotusscript	LotusScript
lua	Lua

Code	Language
m68k	Motorola 68000 Assembler
make	make
matlab	MATLAB M
mirc	mIRC scripting language
mxml	MXML
mpasm	Microchip Assembler
mysql	MySQL
nsis	Nullsoft Scriptable Install System (NSIS)
objc	Objective-C
ocaml-brief	OCaml
ocaml	OCaml
oobas	OpenOffice.org Basic
oracle8	Oracle 8 SQL
oracle11	Oracle 11 SQL
pascal	Pascal
per	per
perl	Perl
php-brief	PHP
php	PHP
pixelbender	Pixel Bender
plsql	PL/SQL
povray	Persistence of Vision Raytracer
powershell	Windows PowerShell
progress	OpenEdge Advanced Business Language
prolog	Prolog
providex	ProvideX
python	Python
qbasic	QBasic/QuickBASIC
rails	Rails
reg	Windows Registry
robots	robots.txt
rsplus	R
ruby	Ruby
sas	SAS
scala	Scala
scheme	Scheme
scilab	Scilab
sdlbasic	SdlBasic
smalltalk	Smalltalk
smarty	Smarty
sql	SQL
tcl	Tcl
teraterm	Tera Term
text	Plain text
thinbasic	thinBasic
tsql	Transact-SQL
typoscript	TypoScript
vala	Vala
vb	Visual Basic
vbnet	Visual Basic .NET
verilog	Verilog
vhdl	VHDL
vim	Vimscript
visualfoxpro	Visual FoxPro
visualprolog	Visual Prolog
whitespace	Whitespace
winbatch	Winbatch
xml	XML
xorg_conf	Xorg.conf
xpp	X++
z80	ZiLOG Z80 Assembler

Extra features

Default Source Language

Added in rev:50693.

If the site mainly quotes the source code of a specific programming language, it would be helpful to set a default language.

To do so, add a new variable to LocalSettings.php, just after the require_once line. We set C programming language as an example:

require_once "$IP/extensions/SyntaxHighlight_GeSHi/SyntaxHighlight_GeSHi.php";
$wgSyntaxHighlightDefaultLang = "c";

Installation

The MediaWiki extension requires the GeSHi project files from SourceForge to work! To make this easier to install and maintain, the extension in git includes the Geshi project in a subdirectory named geshi.

Notes:

• GeSHi 1.1.2alpha3 does not work with the MediaWiki extension.
• You can delete the extensions/SyntaxHighlight_GeSHi/geshi/docs directory to save a few megabytes.

Step 1: downloading

Use a Git tool to clone https://git.wikimedia.org/git/mediawiki/extensions/SyntaxHighlight_GeSHi.git in the extensions directory of your wiki. For example using the Git command-line tool (from within wiki/extensions/):

git clone https://git.wikimedia.org/git/mediawiki/extensions/SyntaxHighlight_GeSHi.git

If you accidentally do this in the wrong directory, you will need to move clone from the current location to wiki/extensions/, like this:

mv SyntaxHighlight_GeSHi /path/to//wiki/extensions/

control.

Or you can use the ExtensionDistributor.

Step 2: Installation

Add this line to the end of your LocalSettings.php:

require_once "$IP/extensions/SyntaxHighlight_GeSHi/SyntaxHighlight_GeSHi.php";

GeSHi installation (optional)

If you didn't put GeSHi in the extensions/SyntaxHighlight_GeSHi/geshi directory, then change the following line in SyntaxHighlight_GeSHi.class.php to suit the path of your geshi.php file

require "geshi/geshi.php";

Sometimes you will need to add the absolute path to geshi (/var/www/html/.../geshi/geshi.php)

Here's a shortcut using the PHP dirname() function with the magic __FILE__ constant:

require (dirname(__FILE__).'/geshi/geshi.php');

VisualEditor integration

The plugin enables direct editing with VisualEditor. A popup is opened when a user wants to edit source or syntaxhighlight sections. For this to work, VisualEditor must be installed and configured from the latest git version, same for Parsoid. The feature randomly does not work with older Parsoid versions.

Configuration

If you want the dashed border like for <pre> tags you have to add them again.

Method 1: CSS file

This method requires r52346 or higher of this extension.

Add to MediaWiki:Geshi.css, MediaWiki:Monobook.css or MediaWiki:Common.css pages:

div.mw-geshi {
  padding: 1em; 
  margin: 1em 0; 
  border: 1px dashed #2f6fab;
  background-color: #f9f9f9;
}

This will give all GeSHi output (except for enclose="none") a dashed border almost identical to <pre> in monobook/main.css

Method 2: Inline CSS

You can also edit the SyntaxHighlight_GeSHi.class.php around line 215 (Line 264 in SVN trunk 82481). Look for this:

$css[] = "\tline-height: normal; border: 0px none white;";

and change it to:

$css[] = "\tline-height: normal; border: 1px dashed #2f6fab;";

On a Unix-like system simply type this command in the directory containing "SyntaxHighlight_GeSHi.class.php":

sed -i 's/$css\[\] = "\\tline-height: normal; border: 0px none white;";/
<!!!continued... THE LINE ABOVE AND THE LINE BELOW ARE ALL ONE LINE!> 
$css\[\] = "\\tline-height: normal; border: 1px dashed #2f6fab;";/g' \
SyntaxHighlight_GeSHi.class.php

Link to Extension Talk (2008): Extension talk:SyntaxHighlight GeSHi/Archive 2008#Problem with CSS: Default style for pre is overwritten

See also rev:52346.

• If you already add the extension to LocalSettings.php before changing this, comment it out via "#" and refresh the page, then remove the # and refresh one more time.

Default DIV Based Rendering

Long strings will cause the page width to blow up when rendered on a web page. The solution to this is to use the enclose="div" tag, this can be enabled by default by editing SyntaxHighlight_GeSHi.class.php near line 156. Look for the following:

...
if ( isset( $args['enclose'] ) ) {
  if ( $args['enclose'] === 'div' ) {
    $enclose = GESHI_HEADER_DIV;
  } elseif ( $args['enclose'] === 'none' ) {
    $enclose = GESHI_HEADER_NONE;
  }
}
...

and append an else case to the if statement:

...
if ( isset( $args['enclose'] ) ) {
  if ( $args['enclose'] === 'div' ) {
    $enclose = GESHI_HEADER_DIV;
  } elseif ( $args['enclose'] === 'none' ) {
    $enclose = GESHI_HEADER_NONE;
  }
} else {
  $enclose = GESHI_HEADER_DIV;}
...

Bugs and Limitations

You may report bugs by clicking here.

See also

• GeSHiCodeTag - A working alternative extension that also uses Geshi
• GeSHi - Generic Syntax Highlighter
• ASHighlight (MediaWiki support for Andre Simon's highlight utility)
• Geshi includes every component - no additional downloads
• Include -- yet another source code syntax highlighter
• SyntaxHighlight GeSHi ParserFunction -- Parser function based alternative, can be used with Semantic MediaWiki
• GoogleCodePrettify - syntax highlighter that uses Google Code Prettify library.
• SyntaxHighlighter - syntax highlighter that uses SyntaxHighlighter library.
• SyntaxHighlight GeSHi remote - a patch to support highlighting text retrieved from a URL.
• ViewFiles - an extension, dependent on this one, to support highlighting text from files viewed via a special page.