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Syntax Highlighting - Built-in Languages
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Supported Programming Languages

Around 90 Programming Languages are supported by Notepad++:
ActionScript Ada ASN.1 ASP Assembly
AutoIt AviSynth BaanC Batch BlitzBasic
C C# C++ CAML CMake
COBOL CoffeeScript Csound CSS D
Diff Erlang ESCRIPT Forth Fortran fixed form
Fortran free form FreeBasic GDScript Go Gui4Cli
Haskell Hollywood HTML ini Inno Setup
Intel HEX Internal Search Java JavaScript json
json5 JSP KiXtart LaTeX Lisp
Lua Makefile MATLAB MMIXAL mssql
NFO Nim Nncrontab NSIS Objective-C
OScript Pascal Perl PHP PostScript
PowerShell Properties file PureBasic Python R
Raku RC REBOL registry Ruby
Rust S-Record Scheme Shell Smalltalk
Spice SQL Swift TCL Tektronix extended HEX
TeX TOML txt2tags TypeScript Verilog
VHDL Visual Basic Visual Prolog XML YAML

For these languages, Notepad++ supports syntax highlighting (customizable), syntax folding, auto-completion (customizable), function list (customizable via PCRE in xml file).

If your beloved language is not in the list above, you can define it yourself easily, by using the User Defined Languages System. If that doesn't meet your needs, you could write (or have someone else write) a lexer plugin.

Please note that in Notepad++ v8.3 and newer, Notepad++ has a feature will no longer perform syntax highlighting on files that are over 200MB -- this prevents extreme performance slowdown caused by trying to syntax highlight extremely large files. This threshold is configurable in Settings > Preferences > Performance (starting in v8.4.7).

JavaScript

Internally, there are actually two entries for JavaScript: in the Style Configurator, these show up as "JavaScript" and "JavaScript (embedded)". The first is for standalone JavaScript files (usually with .js extension); the second is for when JavaScript is embedded in an HTML file -- so you can actually have different color rules for when the JavaScript is inside HTML and when it's a separate file. (In the langs.xml and stylers.xml config files, the standalone uses name="javascript.js".)

If you manually pick Language > J > JavaScript, the active file will use the standalone JavaScript settings.

Themes and Language Support

There are times when a particular Theme will not have been updated to include syntax highlighting for a given Language. If a Language you need is missing in your chosen Theme, you can open %AppData%\Notepad++\stylers.xml (if you use the default theme) or the appropriate %AppData%\Notepad++\themes\______.xml file for your Theme, plus the C:\Program Files\Notepad++\stylers.model.xml (the locations of both those file can vary depending on your active Config Files Location for themes\______.xml, and your notepad++.exe executable's directory for the stylers.model.xml, if you are not using a default installation). Search in stylers.model.xml for the <LexerType...> section for the missing Language, and copy that over to the appropriate location in your themes\______.xml. Close Notepad++ completely and re-run it: that Language should now be in the Style Configurator for your active theme, though depending on how different your Theme's color scheme is compared to the Default Theme, the colors may be jarring compared to your Theme's background color; but once it's in the Style Configurator, you may update the color scheme for that Language in the Style Configurator. (If your Theme is a dark Theme, it might be better to copy from themes\DarkModeDefault.xml instead of copying from stylers.model.xml.)

Similarly, the Style Configurator lists Default Keyword Lists for the styles of some languages: those are defined in %AppData%\Notepad++\langs.xml, and the defaults are in C:\Program Files\Notepad++\langs.model.xml. If langs.model.xml has been updated, then you can copy the updated or added keyword lists from there into your langs.xml.

Contribution: Enable Lexilla Lexer That Is Not Active In Notepad++

The Lexilla library which Notepad++ uses for syntax highlighting has many languages available to it that Notepad++ doesn't yet provide in the Language menu and Style Configurator. In general, just creating an issue to request a language be enabled is not sufficient to get it added, because the developers don't have sufficient knowledge of all Lexilla-enabled languages to know if the addition was successful or not; you should put in the request if there's a language in Lexilla that you would like added to Notepad++, but, if possible, you could also put in the Pull Request. (While it's not sufficient, creating the issue is a necessary first step, because the developer generally does not merge Pull Requests that aren't attached to an existing open issue.)

Creating a PR yourself to enable a not-yet-active lexer should only be attempted if you are familiar with the GitHub environment and the git system of version control, and are comfortable developing in C++. If this is something that you are ready to do, the following are all pieces of the codebase that need to be updated in order to activate a currently-inactive lexer. For this description, "Xyz Pdq" will be the placeholder name of your language; you, of course, need to use your own language's name instead of the placeholder.

  • PowerEditor/src/MISC/PluginsManager/Notepad_plus_msgs.h:
    • Need to add an L_XYZPDQ constant for your language to the end of the enum LangType
    • Insert it between the last real language in the list and L_EXTERNAL; never insert it before an already-existing language, as the position in the list gives it an integer that is used throughout the codebase and config files.
  • PowerEditor/src/menuCmdID.h:
    • Add #define IDM_LANG_XYZPDQ between the last existing language and IDM_LANG_EXTERNAL, using the next integer for the value (the L_XYZPDQ from the enum should be in that same integer slot in the enum)
  • PowerEditor/src/ScintillaComponent/ScintillaEditView.h
    • declare setXyzPdqLexer()
    • if it's a simple lexer, which just needs to define one or more keyword lists, you can define it here instead of in the .cpp below, just calling setLexer(L_XYZPDQ, LIST_0 | LIST_1 | ...);, similar to what was done for setHollywoodLexer()
    • An aside on the keyword lists: The lexilla/Lexers/LexXyzPdq.cxx will contain one or more WordList variables; usually in LexerXyzPdq::WordListSet(), you will see a mapping between the word list index and th WordList variable. That index corresponds to the LIST_# constant used when calling setLexer().
  • PowerEditor/src/ScintillaComponent/ScintillaEditView.cpp

    • add the language to LanguageNameInfo ScintillaEditView::_langNameInfoArray[], just before the L_EXTERNAL entry. The table below describes that value that needs to go in each column of that data structure.

      Column Example Description
      _langName xyzpdq Unique string to identify the language. Will be used as the <Language name="xyzpdq" ... /> attribute in langs.xml
      _shortName Xyz Pdq This is the text that appears in the Languages menu
      _longName Xyz Pdq file This is the text that appears in the Status Bar's file type field
      _langID L_XYZPDQ This is the L_XYZPDQ entry you added to the enum
      _lexerID xyzpdq This is the name of the lexer, as defined in the lexilla/Lexers/LexXyzPdq.cxx, in the LexerModule instantiation

    • add your language to the big switch block in ScintillaEditView::defineDocType(); it should call setXyzPdqLexer(); break

    • add in the definition for your setXyzPdqLexer()

      • If it's just calling setLexer(), you can actually define it in the .h, as described above.
      • If it requires complicated logic, define it here, instead.
      • If the lexer includes SubStyle keyword capability, you can either initialize them in the optional end arguments of the setLexer() call (see setLuaLexer() and setPythonLexer() in the .h for examples of how to use those optional arguments), or your more-complicated definitions may call populateSubStyleKeywords() themselves, like ScintillaEditView::setTypeScriptLexer() does)
        • if you are unsure whether your language has substyles, just search the lexilla/Lexers/LexXyzPdq.cxx for the word SubStyle; with some digging in the code, you should be able to determine which Style the SubStyles get attached to, as well.
  • PowerEditor/src/Notepad_plus.cpp:
    • in the switch in Notepad_plus::menuID2LangType(), add 
      case IDM_LANG_XYZPDQ:
    return L_XYZPDQ;
  • PowerEditor/src/Parameters.cpp:
    • in the switch in NppParameters::langTypeToCommandID(), add 
      case L_XYZPDQ:
    id = IDM_LANG_XYZPDQ; break;
  • PowerEditor/src/Notepad_plus.rc:
    • add a MENUITEM in the alphabetically correct place in both the &Language big-list, and the &Language/POPUP "X" per-letter version.
  • PowerEditor/src/NppCommands.cpp:
    • Notepad_plus::command() has a huge switch; add case IDM_LANG_XYZPDQ: to the big list of similar case IDM_LANG_... entries

And add in config files:

  • PowerEditor/src/langs.model.xml: add in your <Language name="xyzpdq"...> entry with its <Keywords ...> entries
    • the name="instre1" is the keyword list for LIST_0, instre2 for LIST_1, and type1-type7 are LIST_2-LIST_8; substyle1-substyle8 are for the eight substyles that Notepad++ allows (if the lexer has enabled substyles, of course).
  • PowerEditor/src/stylers.model.xml and all of the PowerEditor/installer/themes/*.xml: add in your <LexerType name="xyzpdq"...> with its <WordsStyles> entries
    • lexilla/include/SciLexer.h has #define for #define SCI_XYZPDQ_* N values; you will need to make sure you have a <WordsStyle ... styleID="N" ...> for each of those styles.

You should also include autoCompletion definition and functionList definition if you have them (they are optional, but highly recommended). If you submit a functionList, please remember to also create the unit tests required to accompany new functionList parsers.

Once you have thoroughly tested your code updates, and verified that it can properly syntax-highlight the newly-enabled language, then you can submit your PR to the repository and link it to the issue that you had already created.

Language Detection Priority

When opening an existing file, Notepad++ has an algorithm for trying to decide which language a given file is, with the following priorities:

  1. A language defined at the command line using -l is applied.

  2. If the file is in the active session file (the automatic session.xml or a manually-controlled session), it will use the language stored in that session.

  3. If the file extension is a "known extension" (whether it's from the Style Configurator's default extension list [in langs.xml or langs.model.xml] or user-defined extension list [from stylers.xml or themes\<ThemeName>.xml] for a built-in language, or the User Defined Language's extension settings [from userDefineLang.xml or userDefineLangs\<UDLName>.xml]), Notepad++ will use that language.

  4. If the filename matches one of a few specific names, Notepad++ knows what language they should be:

    filename language
    makefile Makefile
    GNUMakefile Makefile
    CMakeLists.txt CMake
    SConstruct Python
    SConscript Python
    wscript Python
    Rakefile Ruby
    Vagrantfile Ruby
    crontab Shell Script

  5. If the first line in the file gives a known hint as to the file type, it will use that. This includes "prolog lines" starting with <?xml or <?php or <html or <!DOCTPE html or <?, or linux-style "shebang" lines like #!/usr/bin/bash which are looking for sh or python or perl or php or ruby or node to define the correct language.

  6. It will use the default language only if none of the other rules have matched.

As Notepad++ goes through that list in order, it will stop as soon as it finds a matching language for the file. And after Notepad++ has made its detection, you can override what it chose by using the Language menu (and when a session gets saved, the language will remember whatever language is currently active for that file for next time, as described in priority 2).

If you do a Save As on a file, it will use that same sequence for deciding the language, based on the new name and file contents.

Newly-created documents will assume the default language until they are saved.