[thelist] Syntax Highlighting

[Jeff Howden]

Listees,

I'm working on a personal project that involves *lots* of source code being
displayed online.  Standard fixed-width, black text on a white background
just isn't going to cut it here.  I've already got things like line
numbering, wrapping of lone lines, etc. taken care of.  However, there's one
remaining, complex issue I've yet to find (or build, but yuck) a solution
for.  I need to be able to have the source code displayed with syntax
highlighting.  Optimally, it should be as close as possible to the default
syntax highlighting in Macromedia's Homesite+.  

Here are some basic requirements:

 - Must be something I can execute at or near
   runtime.  In most cases, the source code is of
   "live" templates on the server.  Obviously,
   it doesn't make sense to have the live version
   and a syntax highlighted version, creating two
   documents that must be updated everytime there's
   a change.

 - Can be either server-side or client-side.
    - Server-side should be in some way possible
      using ColdFusion whether that's an external
      webservice, HTTP form POST, Java package, or
      even something I can execute from the command
      line.
    - Client-side only has to be IE6+ compatible.
      Other browser support is nice, but not
      required.

 - Must not use <font> tags for markup.  I'd much
   rather <span> tags are used.

 - Must use the class attribute and not the style
   attribute for highlighting so syntax highlighting
   can be controlled externally via a stylesheet.

 - Must support "plug-ins", "brushes", or "language
   syntax definitions" for a number of languages,
   with a mechanism for building any that aren't
   already available.  From the start, I'd like for
   it support the following:
    - XHTML/HTML
    - SQL/T-SQL
    - CSS
    - JavaScript
    - VBScript
    - ColdFusion
    - XML

 - Must support syntax highlighting of more than
   one language in the same document.  For example,
   I may load up a document that has XHTML, CSS,
   and JavaScript in it.  I want the appropriate
   elements from each to be correctly colored.

   Additionally, it must be smart.  For example,
   it should use CSS-only highlighting rules
   for things it encounters between <style></style>
   tags and as "style" attribute values.  It
   should use JavaScript-only highlighting for
   things it encounters between <script></script>
   tags and as event handler attribute values, 
   except when encountering a document.write or
   innerHTML string value that contains HTML, in
   which case it should use HTML rules.

 - Ideally, I want to have fine-grained control
   over not only tags and what color they're
   given, but also coloring of attributes,
   attribute values, reserved words, keywords,
   operators, comments, punctuation, etc., each 
   language specific.  I'd also like to be able
   to group certain tags together into common
   sets.  For example, form, fieldset, legend,
   label, input, select, optgroup, option, 
   button, and textarea are all a part of the
   "form" set, while table, caption, thead, tbody,
   tr, th, td, colgroup, and col are all a part
   of the "table" set.

 - Would be nice if it detected and converted
   email addresses, URLs, UNC paths, etc. into
   clickable links.

 - Would also be nice if the tags for
   highlighting didn't span rows.  I know this
   will increase the final filesize, but that'll
   mean it'll integrate with what I've already
   put together with the least amount of headache.

Anybody seen anything like what I'm looking for?  I've looked all over the
place, but everything I find seems to have some sort of fatal flaw.

The most promising that I've looked into.  I just need to figure out how to
use it.

http://ostermiller.org/syntax/tohtml.html

Others I've looked into that are close, but fail on one important point or
another.

http://www.dreamprojections.com/SyntaxHighlighter
http://dean.edwards.name/my/examples/star-light/
http://simon.incutio.com/js/syntaxHighlight.html
http://www.actiprosoftware.com/Products/DotNet/CodeHighlighter/InlineCode.as
px
http://helene.muze.nl/

Thanks,

 [>] Jeff Howden
     jeff at jeffhowden.com
     http://jeffhowden.com/