.TH highlight 1 "2010-03-29" "Andre Simon" "user documentation"

.SH NAME
Highlight - a universal sourcecode to formatted text converter

.SH SYNOPSIS
.B highlight
[OPTIONS]... [FILES]...

.SH DESCRIPTION
.B Highlight
converts sourcecode to HTML, XHTML, RTF, LaTeX, TeX, XML, BBCode, SVG, XTERM or ANSI escape sequences.
There are 40 colour themes available.
.B Highlight
recognizes keywords, numbers, strings, comments, symbols and preprocessor directives.
It supports
ABAP/4, Abstract, Action Script, ADA95, Agda, AMPL, AMTrix, Apache Config, AppleScript, Applied Type System, Arc, ARM, ASCEND, ASP, Assembler, AutoIt, Avenue, Bash, BibTeX, Bison, Blitz Basic, BM Script, C#, C and C++, ClearBasic, Clipper, Clips, Clojure, COBOL, ColdFusion MX, CSS, D, Diff, DOS Batch, Dylan, Eiffel, Erlang, Euphoria, Express, FAME, Felix, Fortran 77, Fortran 90, Frink, (G)AWK, Graphviz, Haskell, Haskell LHS, Hecl, Icon, IDL, Informix, INI, Interactive Data Language, IO, Jasmin, Java, Javascript, JSP, LDAP, Lilypond, Linden Script, Lisp, Logtalk, Lotos, Lotus, Lua, Luban, Make, Maple, Matlab, MaxScript, Maya, Mercury, Microsoft PowerShell, Miranda, Modelica, Modula3, MSSQL, Nasal, Nemerle, Nice, NSIS, Oberon, Objective C, Objective Caml, Object Script, Octave, Open Object Rexx, Oz, Paradox, Pascal, PATROL, Perl, PHP, Pike, PL/1, PL/SQL, PostScript, POV-Ray, PowerPC Assembler, Progress, Prolog, Pyrex, Python, Python, QMake Project, Qore, Qu, R, Rebol, Relax NG, Rexx, RPM Spec, Ruby, SAS, Scala, Scilab, SMALL, Smalltalk, SNMP, SNOBOL, SPIN SQL, Squirrel, Standard ML, SuperX++, Sybase SQL, Tcl/Tk, TCSH, TeX and LaTeX, TTCN3, Vala, Verilog, VHDL, Visual Basic, XML, Zonnon.

.PP
It's easily possible to enhance highlight's database of programming languages and colour themes.
See the README file for details.
.SH General options
.IP "-B, --batch-recursive=<wildcard>"
convert all files matching the wildcard (uses recursive search)
.IP "-D, --data-dir=<path>"
set path to highlight data directory
.IP "-E, --add-data-dir=<path>"
set path to an additional data directory, which is searched first
.IP "--add-config-dir=<path>"
set path to an additional configuration directory
.IP "-h, --help"
print this help
.IP "-i, --input=<file>"
name of input file
.IP "-o, --output=<file>"
name of output file
.IP "-O, --outdir=<output directory>"
name of output directory
.IP "-P, --progress"
print progress bar in batch mode
.IP "-S, --syntax=<type>"
set type of source code, necessary if input filename is unknown
.IP "-v, --verbose"
print debug info to stderr
.IP "-p, --list-langs"
list installed language definitions
.IP "-q, --quiet"
supress progress info in batch mode
.IP "-w, --list-themes"
list installed themes
.IP "--force"
generate output if language type is unknown
.IP "--print-config"
print path configuration
.IP "print-style"
print only style (see --style-outfile)
.IP "--skip=<list>"
ignore listed unknown file types (Example: --skip='bak;c~;h~')
.IP "--start-nested=<lang>"
define nested language which starts input without opening delimiter
.IP "--validate-input"
test if input is a valid text file
.IP "--version"
print version and copyright info

.SH Output formats
.IP "-H, --html"
generate HTML (default)
.IP "-A, --ansi"
generate terminal output (16 colours)
.IP "-L, --latex"
generate LaTeX
.IP "-M, --xterm256"
generate terminal output (256 colours)
.IP "-R, --rtf"
generate RTF
.IP "-T, --tex"
generate TeX
.IP "-X, --xhtml"
generate XHTML 1.1
.IP "-Z, --xml"
generate XML
.IP "-G, --svg"
generate SVG (experimental)
.IP "-Y, --bbcode"
generate BBCode (experimental)
.IP "--out-format=<format>"
output file in given format. 
<format>: see long options above

.SH Output formatting options
.IP "-c, --style-outfile=<file>"
name of style definition file or output to stdout, if "stdout" is given as file argument
.IP "-d, --doc-title"
document title
.IP "-e, --style-infile=<file>"
name of file to be included in style-outfile
.IP "-f, --fragment"
omit header and footer of the output document
.IP "-F, --reformat=<style>"
reformat output in given style.
<style>=[allman, banner, gnu, java, kr, linux, stroustrup, whitesmith]
.IP "-I, --include-style"
include style definition in output
.IP "-J, --line-length=<num>"
line length before wrapping (see -W, -V)
.IP "-j, --line-number-length=<num>"
line number length incl. left padding
.IP "-k, --font=<font>"
set font (specific to output format)
.IP "-K, --font-size=<num?>"
set font size (specific to output format)
.IP "-l, --linenumbers"
print line numbers in output file
.IP "-m, --line-number-start=<cnt>"
start line numbering with cnt (assumes -l)
.IP "-s, --style=<style name>"
set highlighting style (see --list-themes)
.IP "-t  --replace-tabs=<num>"
replace tabs by num spaces
.IP "-u, --encoding=<enc>"
set output encoding which matches input file encoding; omit encoding information if enc=NONE
.IP "-V, --wrap-simple"
wrap long lines without indenting function parameters and statements
.IP "-W, --wrap"
wrap long lines (use with caution)
.IP "-z, --zeroes"
fill leading space of line numbers with zeroes
.IP "--kw-case=<upper|lower|capitalize>"
output all keywords in given case if language is not case sensitive
.IP "--delim-cr"
set CR as end-of-line delimiter (MacOS 9)
.IP "--no-trailing-nl"
omit trailing newline

.SH "(X)HTML OPTIONS"
.IP "-a, --anchors"
attach anchors to line numbers (HTML only)
.IP "-y, --anchor-prefix=<str>"
set anchor name prefix
.IP "-N, --anchor-filename"
use input file name as anchor name
.IP "-C, --print-index"
print index file with links to all output files
.IP "--ordered-list"
print lines as ordered list items
.IP "--class-name=<str>"
set CSS class name prefix
print lines as ordered list items (assumes -l)
.IP "--inline-css"
output CSS within each tag (generates verbose output)
.IP "--mark-line='n[=txt]; m'"
mark given lines n..m and add optional help texts as tooltips
.IP "--enclose-pre"
enclose fragmented output with pre tag (assumes -f)
.IP "--ctags-file[=<file>]"
read ctags file to include meta information as tooltips (default value: tags)

.SH "LaTeX OPTIONS"
.IP "-b, --babel"
disable Babel package shorthands
.IP "-r, --replace-quotes"
replace double quotes by \\dq
.IP "--pretty-symbols"
improve appearance of brackets and other symbols

.SH "RTF OPTIONS"
.IP "-x, --page-size=<size>"
set page size, <size>=[a3, a4, a5, b4, b5, b6, letter]
.IP "--char-styles"
include character stylesheets

.SH "SVG OPTIONS"
.IP "--height=<h>"
set image height (units allowed)
.IP "--width=<w>"
set image size (see --height)

.SH "GNU SOURCE-HIGHLIGHT COMPATIBILITY OPTIONS"
.IP "--doc"
create stand alone document
.IP "--no-doc"
cancel the --doc option
.IP "--css=filename"
the external style sheet filename
.IP "--src-lang=STRING"
source language
.IP " -t, --tab=INT"
specify tab length
.IP " -n, --line-number[=0]"
number all output lines, optional padding
.IP "--line-number-ref[=p]"
number all output lines and generate an anchor, made of the specified prefix
 p + the line number  (default='line')
.IP "--output-dir=path"
 output directory
.IP "--failsafe"
if no language definition is found for the
input, it is simply copied to the output

.PP
If no in- or output files are specified, stdin and stdout will be used for  in- or output.
-t will be ignored if -F is set.
-i and -o will be ignored if -b or -B is set.
-c will be ignored if the output format does not support referenced style files.
HTML will be generated, if no other output format is given. 
Style definitions are stored in highlight.css (HTML, XHTML, SVG) or
highlight.sty (LaTeX, TeX) if neither -c nor -I is given.
Reformatting code will only work with C, C++, C# and Java input files.
.SH BUGS
The wrapping options might cause faulty highlighting of multi line comments.
.SH FILES
The parsing information of the programming languages is stored in
.I /usr/share/highlight/langDefs/.
You may enhance
.B highlight's
parsing capabilities by adding more *.lang - files to this directory.
You can also define other directories with -D, or add search paths with -E.
Documentation files are stored in
.I /usr/share/doc/highlight/
, configuration files in
.I /etc/highlight/.

.SH Examples
Single file conversion:
.PP
highlight -o hello.html -i hello.c
.PP
highlight -o hello.html hello.c
.PP
highlight -o hello.html -S c < hello.c
.PP
highlight -S c < hello.c > hello.html
.PP
Note that a file highlight.css is created in the current directory.
.PP
Batch file processing:

highlight -X  -B '*.cpp' -O /home/you/html_code/
.PP
converts all *.cpp files in the current directory and its subdirectories to
xhtml files, and stores the output in /home/you/html_code.
.PP
highlight -L  * -O /home/you/latex_code/
.PP
converts all files to LaTeX, stored in /home/you/latex_code/.
.PP
Use --quiet to improve performance of batch file processing (recommended for usage in shell scripts).
.PP
Use highlight -A <yourfile> | less -R to display a source file in a terminal.
.SH AUTHORS
Andre Simon <as@andre-simon.de>
.SH SEE ALSO
README file and highlight webpage at http://www.andre-simon.de/.