Syntax Highlighting

16 August 2013

Michael Rose

Syntax highlighting is a feature that displays source code, in different colors 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 syntax errors are visually distinct. Highlighting does not affect the meaning of the text itself; it is intended only for human readers.¹

GFM Code Blocks

GitHub Flavored Markdown fenced code blocks are supported. To modify styling and highlight colors edit /_sass/_highlighter.scss.

css

#container {
  float: left;
  margin: 0 -240px 0 0;
  width: 100%;
}

scss

.highlight {
  margin: 0;
  padding: 1em;
  font-family: $monospace;
  font-size: $type-size-7;
  line-height: 1.8;
}

html

<nav class="pagination" role="navigation">
  {% if page.previous %}
    <a href="{{ site.url }}{{ page.previous.url }}" class="btn" title="{{ page.previous.title }}">Previous article</a>
  {% endif %}
  {% if page.next %}
    <a href="{{ site.url }}{{ page.next.url }}" class="btn" title="{{ page.next.title }}">Next article</a>
  {% endif %}
</nav><!-- /.pagination -->

ruby

module Jekyll
  class TagIndex < Page
    def initialize(site, base, dir, tag)
      @site = site
      @base = base
      @dir = dir
      @name = 'index.html'
      self.process(@name)
      self.read_yaml(File.join(base, '_layouts'), 'tag_index.html')
      self.data['tag'] = tag
      tag_title_prefix = site.config['tag_title_prefix'] || 'Tagged: '
      tag_title_suffix = site.config['tag_title_suffix'] || '&#8211;'
      self.data['title'] = "#{tag_title_prefix}#{tag}"
      self.data['description'] = "An archive of posts tagged #{tag}."
    end
  end
end

Code Blocks in Lists

Indentation matters. Be sure the indent of the code block aligns with the first non-space character after the list item marker (e.g., 1.). Usually this will mean indenting 3 spaces instead of 4.

Do step 1.

Now do this:

def print_hi(name)
  puts "Hi, #{name}"
end
print_hi('Tom')
#=> prints 'Hi, Tom' to STDOUT.

Now you can do this.

Jekyll Highlight Tag

An example of a code blocking using Jekyll’s {% highlight %} tag.

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// 'gulp html' -- does nothing
// 'gulp html --prod' -- minifies and gzips HTML files for production
gulp.task('html', () => {
  return gulp.src(paths.siteFolderName + paths.htmlPattern)
    .pipe(when(argv.prod, htmlmin({
      removeComments: true,
      collapseWhitespace: true,
      collapseBooleanAttributes: false,
      removeAttributeQuotes: false,
      removeRedundantAttributes: false,
      minifyJS: true,
      minifyCSS: true
    })))
    .pipe(when(argv.prod, size({title: 'optimized HTML'})))
    .pipe(when(argv.prod, gulp.dest(paths.siteFolderName)))
    .pipe(when(argv.prod, gzip({append: true})))
    .pipe(when(argv.prod, size({
      title: 'gzipped HTML',
      gzip: true
    })))
    .pipe(when(argv.prod, gulp.dest(paths.siteFolderName)))
});

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Module[{},
  Sqrt[2]
  4
]

GitHub Gist Embed

An example of a Gist embed below.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syntax_highlighting ↩