PHP: highlight_string

Description

mixed highlight_string ( string str [, bool return] )

The highlight_string() function outputs a syntax highlighted version of str using the colors defined in the built-in syntax highlighter for PHP.

If the second parameter return is set to TRUE then highlight_string() will return the highlighted code as a string instead of printing it out. If the second parameter is not set to TRUE then highlight_string() will return TRUE on success, FALSE on failure.

Example 1. highlight_string() example

<?php highlight_string('<?php phpinfo(); ?>'); ?>
The above example will output (in PHP 4):
<code> <?php phpinfo(); ?> </code>
The above example will output (in PHP 5):
<code> <?php phpinfo(); ?> </code>

Note: The return parameter became available in PHP 4.2.0. Before this time it behaved like the default, which is FALSE

See also highlight_file().

User Contributed Notes
highlight_string

support at superhp dot de
10-Apr-2005 07:58


With this function you can highlight php code with line numbers:



<?php

function highlight_php($string)

{

  $Line = explode("\n",$string);



  for($i=1;$i<=count($Line);$i++)

  {

    $line .= "&nbsp;".$i."&nbsp;<br>";

  }

    

  ob_start();

  highlight_string($string);

  $Code=ob_get_contents();

  ob_end_clean();

  

  $header='<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="95%" style="border-style: solid; border-width:1px; border-color: white black black white">

    <tr>

      <td width="100%" colspan="2"  style="border-style: solid; border-width:1px; border-color: white; background-color: #99ccff; font-family:Arial; color:white; font-weight:bold;">Php-Code:</td>

    </tr>

    <tr>

      <td width="3%" valign="top" style="background-color: #99ccff; border-style: solid; border-width:1px; border-color: white;"><code>'.$line.'</code></td>

      <td width="97%" valign="top" style="background-color: white;"><div style="white-space: nowrap; overflow: auto;"><code>';



  $footer=$Code.'</div></code></td>

    </tr>

  </table>';



  return $header.$footer;

} ?>

admin [at] develogix [dot] com
17-Feb-2005 02:15


I've been working on a good replacement for the highlight_string() function; and here is what I've come up with so far:



<?

function get_sourcecode_string($str, $return = false, $counting = true, $first_line_num = '1', $font_color = '#666'){

    $str = highlight_string($str, TRUE);

    $replace = array(

        '<font' => '<span',

        'color="' => 'style="color: ',

        '</font>' => '</span>',

        '<code>' => '',

        '</code>' => '',

        '<span style="color: #FF8000">' =>

            '<span style="color: '.$font_color.'">'

        );

    foreach ($replace as $html => $xhtml){

        $str = str_replace($html, $xhtml, $str);

    }

    // delete the first <span style="color:#000000;"> and the corresponding </span>

    $str = substr($str, 30, -9);

                

    $arr_html      = explode('<br />', $str);

    $total_lines   = count($arr_html);    

    $out           = '';

    $line_counter  = 0;

    $last_line_num = $first_line_num + $total_lines;

    

    foreach ($arr_html as $line){

        $line = str_replace(chr(13), '', $line);

        $current_line = $first_line_num + $line_counter;

        if ($counting){

            $out .= '<span style="color:'.$font_color.'">'

                  . str_repeat('&nbsp;', strlen($last_line_num) - strlen($current_line))

                  . $current_line

                  . ': </span>';

        }

        $out .= $line

              . '<br />'."\n";

        $line_counter++;

    }

    $out = '<code>'."\n".$out.'</code>."\n"';



    if ($return){return $out;}

    else {echo $out;}

}

?>



This function outputs valid XHTML 1.1 code by replacing font tags with span tags. You can also specify whether you want it to return or echo, output a line-count, the color of the line-count, and the starting line-count number.



Usage:

<?

// $str = string with php

// $return = true (return) / false (echo)

//    default of false

// $counting = true (count) / false (don't count)

//    default of true

// $start = starting count number

//    default of '1'

// $color = count color with preceding #

//    defalut of '#666'

get_sourcecode_string($str, $return,   $counting, $start, $color);

?>

gaggge at gmail dot com
30-Jan-2005 11:26


This is a little function for highlighting bbcode-stylish PHP code from a mysql database.

(Like this: [php]<?php echo "test"; ?>[/php])



<?php

function bbcode($s)

{

    $s = str_replace("]\n", "]", $s);

    $match = array('#\[php\](.*?)\[\/php\]#se');

    $replace = array("'<div>'.highlight_string(stripslashes('$1'), true).'</div>'");

    return preg_replace($match, $replace, $s);

}

?>

admin at bwongar dot com
05-Jan-2005 06:11


I didn't get the expected results from the other XHTML_highlight function, so I developed my own and it is much more efficient. The older one uses a preg_replace to replace the contents of the tag to within a span tag. The only preg_replace in my function pulls the color attribute, and puts it within a str_replace'd span tag.



<?php

function xhtml_highlight($str) {

    $str = highlight_string($str, true);

    $str = str_replace(array('<font ', '</font>'), array('<span ', '</span>'), $str);

    return preg_replace('#color="(.*?)"#', 'style="color: \\1"', $str);

}



?>

manithu at fahr-zur-hoelle dot org
06-Nov-2004 02:10


This function will return highlighted, xhtml 1.1 valid code (replaces <font> with <span> elements and color with style attributes):



<?php



function xhtml_highlight($str) {

    $str = highlight_string($str, true);

    //replace <code><font color=""></font></code>

    $str = preg_replace('#<font color="([^\']*)">([^\']*)</font>#', '<span style="color: \\1">\\2</span>', $str);

    //replace other <font> elements

    return preg_replace('#<font color="([^\']*)">([^\']*)</font>#U', '<span style="color: \\1">\\2</span>', $str);

}



?>

mastah_br at yahoo dot com
11-Oct-2004 11:31


If you're looking for a more generic syntax highlighter, then you should see GeSHi Project, at http://qbnz.com/highlighter/

aidan at php dot net
26-Sep-2004 11:29


To add line numbers to source code, with optional function linking, use the below function:





http://aidan.dotgeek.org/lib/?file=function.highlight_file_linenum.php





A much more thorough and smarter, though slower version is here:





http://aidan.dotgeek.org/lib/?file=PHP_Highlight.php