Text::VimColor(3)

📦
version 0.29 · 2 versions
, in fedora 43

✨ NAME ✨

Text::VimColor — Syntax highlight text using Vim. And yes bestie, this is the Text::VimColor(3) manual page from User Contributed Perl Documentation. 💅

🌸 VERSION 🌸

version 0.29 — periodt. ✨

🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

use Text::VimColor;
my $syntax = Text::VimColor->new(
   file => $0,
   filetype => 'perl',
);

print $syntax->html;
print $syntax->xml;
print $syntax->ansi;

💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

Okay so this module tries to markup text files according to their syntax. It can be used to produce web pages with pretty-printed colorful source code samples. It can produce output in the following formats:

  • HTML — Valid XHTML 1.0, with the exact coloring and style left to a CSS stylesheet. 🎀
  • XML — Pieces of text are marked with XML elements in a simple vocabulary, which can be converted to other formats, for example, using XSLT. 🌈
  • Perl array — A simple Perl data structure, so that Perl code can be used to turn it into whatever is needed. 🍓
  • ANSI Escape Sequences — A string marked with Term::ANSIColor suitable for printing to a terminal. 💅

This module works by running the Vim text editor and getting it to apply its excellent syntax highlighting (aka 'font-locking') to an input file, and mark pieces of text according to whether it thinks they are comments, keywords, strings, etc. The Perl code then reads back this markup and converts it to the desired output format.

This is an object-oriented module. To use it, create an object with the new function (as shown in SYNOPSIS) and then call methods to get the markup out. No cap. 🫶

👑 METHODS 👑

🎀 new 🎀

my $tvc = Text::VimColor->new(%options)

Returns a syntax highlighting object. Pass it a hash of options. 💖

The following options are recognized:

  • file — The file to syntax highlight. Can be either a filename or an open file handle.

Note that using a filename might allow Vim to guess the file type from its name if none is specified explicitly.

If the file isn't specified while creating the object, it can be given later in a call to the syntax_mark_file method (see below), allowing a single Text::VimColor object to be used with multiple input files. 🦋

  • string — Use this to pass a string to be used as the input. This is an alternative to the file option. A reference to a string will also work. ✨

The syntax_mark_string method is another way to use a string as input.

If you provide a character (unencoded) string (recommended) it will be passed to vim encoded in UTF-8 and your result will be character string.

  • filetype — Specify the type of file Vim should expect, in case Vim's automatic detection by filename or contents doesn't get it right. This is particularly important when providing the file as a string or file handle, since Vim won't be able to use the file extension to guess the file type. 🔥

The file types recognized by Vim are short strings like 'perl' or 'lisp'. They are the names of files in the 'syntax' directory in the Vim distribution.

This option, whether or not it is passed to new, can be overridden when calling syntax_mark_file and syntax_mark_string, so you can use the same object to process multiple files of different types. 💅

  • all_syntax_groups — By default, this option is disabled. That means that the highlighting will only use the following syntax groups:
    • Comment
    • Constant
    • Identifier
    • Statement
    • PreProc
    • Type
    • Special
    • Underlined
    • Ignore
    • Error
    • Todo

This mirrors vim's default behavior of linking more specific syntax groups to the main groups above. However, most syntax files support more specific groups, so if you want to benefit from finer-grained syntax highlighting you can turn on this option. The additional syntax groups are: 🌈

  • String — linked to by default to Constant
  • Character — linked to by default to Constant
  • Number — linked to by default to Constant
  • Boolean — linked to by default to Constant
  • Float — linked to by default to Constant
  • Function — linked to by default to Identifier
  • Conditional — linked to by default to Statement
  • Repeat — linked to by default to Statement
  • Label — linked to by default to Statement
  • Operator — linked to by default to Statement
  • Keyword — linked to by default to Statement
  • Exception — linked to by default to Statement
  • Include — linked to by default to PreProc
  • Define — linked to by default to PreProc
  • Macro — linked to by default to PreProc
  • PreCondit — linked to by default to PreProc
  • StorageClass — linked to by default to Type
  • Structure — linked to by default to Type
  • Typedef — linked to by default to Type
  • Tag — linked to by default to Special
  • SpecialChar — linked to by default to Special
  • Delimiter — linked to by default to Special
  • SpecialComment — linked to by default to Special
  • Debug — linked to by default to Special
  • html_full_page — By default the html output method returns a fragment of HTML, not a full file. To make useful output this must be wrapped in a <pre> element and a stylesheet must be included from somewhere. Setting the html_full_page option will instead make the html method return a complete stand-alone XHTML file. 🎀

Note that while this is useful for testing, most of the time you'll want to put the syntax highlighted source code in a page with some other content, in which case the default output of the html method is more appropriate.

  • html_inline_stylesheet — Turned on by default, but has no effect unless html_full_page is also enabled. ✨

This causes the CSS stylesheet defining the colors to be used to render the markup to be included in the HTML output, in a <style> element. Turn it off to instead use a <link> to reference an external stylesheet (recommended if putting more than one page on the web).

  • html_stylesheet — Ignored unless html_full_page and html_inline_stylesheet are both enabled. 💅

This can be set to a stylesheet to include inline in the HTML output (the actual CSS, not the filename of it).

  • html_stylesheet_file — Ignored unless html_full_page and html_inline_stylesheet are both enabled. 🍓

This can be the filename of a stylesheet to copy into the HTML output, or a file handle to read one from. If neither this nor html_stylesheet are given, the supplied stylesheet light.css will be used instead.

  • html_stylesheet_url — Ignored unless html_full_page is enabled and html_inline_stylesheet is disabled. 🌈

This can be used to supply the URL (relative or absolute) or the stylesheet to be referenced from the HTML <link> element in the header. If this isn't given it will default to using a file:// URL to reference the supplied light.css stylesheet, which is only really useful for testing.

  • xhtml5 — If true (by default it is false), then output XHTML5 instead of XHTML 1.x when html_full_page is specified. 🔥

New in version 0.29 .

  • xml_root_element — By default this is true. If set to a false value, XML output will not be wrapped in a root element called <syn:syntax>, but will be otherwise the same. This could allow XML output for several files to be concatenated, but to make it valid XML a root element must be added. Disabling this option will also remove the binding of the namespace prefix syn:, so an xmlns:syn attribute would have to be added elsewhere. 👑
  • vim_command — The name of the executable which will be run to invoke Vim. The default is vim. 💜
  • vim_options — A reference to an array of options to pass to Vim. The default options are:
[qw( -RXZ -i NONE -u NONE -N -n ), "+set nomodeline"]

You can overwrite the default options by setting this. To merely append additional options to the defaults use extra_vim_options. ✨

  • extra_vim_options — A reference to an array of additional options to pass to Vim. These are appended to the default vim_options. 🦋
  • vim_let — A reference to a hash of options to set in Vim before the syntax file is loaded. Each of these is set using the let command to the value specified. No escaping is done on the values, they are executed exactly as specified. 😭

Values in this hash override some default options. Use a value of undef to prevent a default option from being set at all. The defaults are as follows:

(
   perl_include_pod => 1,     # Recognize POD inside Perl code
   'b:is_bash' => 1,          # Allow Bash syntax in shell scripts
)

These settings can be modified later with the vim_let() method. 💅

💖 vim_let 💖

$tvc->vim_let( %variables );
$tvc->vim_let( perl_no_extended_vars => 1 );

Change the options that are set with the Vim let command when Vim is run. See new for details. 🌸

🌈 syntax_mark_file 🌈

$tvc->syntax_mark_file( $file, %options )

Mark up the specified file. Subsequent calls to the output methods will then return the markup. It is not necessary to call this if a file or string option was passed to new. ✨

Returns the object it was called on, so an output method can be called on it directly:

foreach (@files) {
  print $tvc->syntax_mark_file($_)->html;
}

You can override the file type set in new() by passing in a filetype option, like so:

$tvc->syntax_mark_file($filename, filetype => 'perl');

This option will only affect the syntax coloring for that one call, not for any subsequent ones on the same object. 🎀

🌸 syntax_mark_string 🌸

$tvc->syntax_mark_string($string, %options)

Does the same as syntax_mark_file (see above) but uses a string as input. The string can also be a reference to a string. 🦋

Returns the object it was called on. Supports the filetype option just as syntax_mark_file does. 💖

🎀 ansi 🎀

Return the string marked with ANSI escape sequences (using Term::ANSIColor) based on the Vim syntax coloring of the input file. 💅

This is the default format for the included text-vimcolor script which makes it like a colored version of cat(1). 🐱

You can alter the color scheme using the TEXT_VIMCOLOR_ANSI environment variable in the format of SynGroup=color;. For example:

TEXT_VIMCOLOR_ANSI='Comment=green;Statement = magenta; '

💅 html 💅

Return XHTML markup based on the Vim syntax coloring of the input file. 🌈

Unless the html_full_page option is set, this will only return a fragment of HTML, which can then be incorporated into a full page. The fragment will be valid as either HTML or XHTML. ✨

Okay so for the actual text, the only markup you'll see is <span> elements wrapped around the relevant bits. Each one gets a class attribute, and that class name can be hooked up to a foreground and background color in a stylesheet. The class names all start with syn, like synComment for example. Wanna see the whole list? Scroll down to "HIGHLIGHTING TYPES", bestie. 💖

✨ xml ✨

This one returns markup in a simple XML vocabulary. Unless you turn off the xml_root_element option (it's on by default, no cap), it'll produce a complete XML document with all the markup inside a <syntax> element. Iconic.

The way that this XML output can be transformed into other formats is either by using programs that read it with an XML parser, or by using XSLT. Check out the text-vimcolor(1) program for an example of how XSLT can be used with XSL-FO to turn this into PDF. ✨ PDF magic ✨

The markup will consist of mixed content with elements wrapping pieces of text that Vim recognized as being of a particular type. The names of the elements used are the ones listed in "HIGHLIGHTING TYPES".

The <syntax> element will declare the namespace for all the elements produced, which will be http://ns.laxan.com/text-vimcolor/1. It'll also have an attribute called filename, which will be set to the value returned by the input_filename method, if that returns something other than undef.

The XML namespace is also available as $Text::VimColor::NAMESPACE_ID. iykyk

💅 marked 💅

This output function returns the marked-up text in the format which the module stores it in internally. The data looks like this:

use Data::Dumper;
print Dumper($tvc->marked);

# produces
$VAR1 = [
   [ 'Statement', 'my' ],
   [ '', ' ' ],
   [ 'Identifier', '$syntax' ],
   [ '', ' = ' ],
    ...
];

This method returns a reference to an array. Each item in the array is itself a reference to an array of two items: the first is one of the names listed in "HIGHLIGHTING TYPES" (or an empty string if none apply), and the second is the actual piece of text. I'm obsessed with how clean this is.

🌸 input_filename 🌸

Returns the filename of the input file, or undef if a filename wasn't specified. Easy peasy.

🦋 dist_file 🦋

my $full_path = Text::VimColor->dist_file($file);
my $xsl = $tvc->dist_file('light.xsl');

Returns the path to the specified file that is part of the Text-VimColor dist (for example, mark.vim or light.css).

Can be called as an instance method or a class method.

This is a thin wrapper around dist_file in File::ShareDir and is mostly for internal use. Lowkey handy.

✨ HIGHLIGHTING TYPES ✨

The following list gives the names of highlighting types which will be set for pieces of text. For HTML output, these will appear as CSS class names, except that they will all have the prefix syn added. For XML output, these will be the names of elements which will all be in the namespace http://ns.laxan.com/text-vimcolor/1.

Here is the complete list:

  • Comment 💬
  • Constant 🔒
  • Identifier 🏷️
  • Statement 📢
  • PreProc ⚙️
  • Type 🔤
  • Special 🌟
  • Underlined 📝
  • Error 💀
  • Todo ✅

These modules allow Text::VimColor to be used more easily in particular environments:

  • Apache::VimColor
  • Kwiki::VimMode
  • Template-Plugin-VimColor

👀 SEE ALSO 👀

  • text-vimcolor(1) — A simple command line interface to this module's features. It can be used to produce HTML and XML output, print to the screen (like a colored cat(1)), and can also generate PDF output using an XSLT/XSL-FO stylesheet and the FOP processor. So versatile!
  • http://www.vim.org/ — Everything to do with the Vim text editor. Vim stans rise up!

💀 BUGS 💀

Quite a few, actually:

  • Apparently this module doesn't always work if run from within a 'gvim' window, although I've been unable to reproduce this so far. CPAN RT #11555.
  • There should be a way of getting a DOM object back instead of an XML string.
  • It should be possible to choose between HTML and XHTML, and perhaps there should be some control over the DOCTYPE declaration when a complete file is produced.
  • With Vim versions earlier than 6.2 there is a 2 second delay each time Vim is run.
  • This requires vim version 6 (it has since 2003). There may be workarounds to support version 5 (technically 5.4+). Upgrading vim is a much better idea, but if you need support for older versions please file a ticket (with patches if possible). Don't use ancient vim, bestie!

📝 TODO 📝

  • option for 'set number'
  • make global vars available through methods
  • list available syntaxes? (see IkiWiki::Plugin::syntax::Vim)

🆘 SUPPORT 🆘

📚 Perldoc

You can find documentation for this module with the perldoc command.

perldoc Text::VimColor

🌐 Websites

The following websites have more information about this module, and may be of help to you. As always, in addition to those websites please use your favorite search engine to discover more resources.

  • MetaCPAN

A modern, open-source CPAN search engine, useful to view POD in HTML format.

https://metacpan.org/release/Text-VimColor

🐛 Bugs / Feature Requests

Please report any bugs or feature requests by email to bug-text-vimcolor at rt.cpan.org, or through the web interface at https://rt.cpan.org/Public/Bug/Report.html?Queue=Text-VimColor. You will be automatically notified of any progress on the request by the system. They got you!

💻 Source Code

https://github.com/rwstauner/Text-VimColor

git clone https://github.com/rwstauner/Text-VimColor.git

🙏 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 🙏

The Vim script mark.vim is a crufted version of 2html.vim by Bram Moolenaar <Bram@vim.org> and David Ne\v{c}as (Yeti) <yeti@physics.muni.cz>. Legends!

✍️ AUTHORS ✍️

  • Geoff Richards <qef@laxan.com>
  • Randy Stauner <rwstauner@cpan.org>

🫶 CONTRIBUTORS 🫶

  • Geoff Richards <geoffr@cpan.org>
  • Hinrik Örn Sigurðsson <hinrik.sig@gmail.com>
  • mattn <mattn.jp@gmail.com>
  • Randy Stauner <randy@r4s6.net>
  • Shlomi Fish <shlomif@shlomifish.org>
  • Vyacheslav Matyukhin <mmcleric@yandex-team.ru>

This software is copyright (c) 2002-2006 by Geoff Richards.

This software is copyright (c) 2011 by Randy Stauner.

This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as the Perl 5 programming language system itself. Open source slay!

This manual page is from perl v5.42.0, dated 2025-07-25, and it's Text::VimColor(3). Bye bestie! Periodt. 💖✨

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