Erlang Syntax Highlighting

I have written a language definition file for GtkSourceView to get a nice syntax highlighting for Erlang with applications that use this component, e.g. Gnome’s standard editor gedit.

The highlighting looks like this:


Screenshot gedit with Erlang sourcecode

Here is how to get this to work:

Install Erlang Language File

  1. Download the file erlang.lang.
  2. Copy the file to /usr/share/gtksourceview-1.0/language-specs/erlang.lang.
  3. Start gedit, open an Erlang file, and choose View > Highlight Mode > Sources > Erlang.

Automatically Recognize *.erl

If you want gedit to automatically recognize that all .erl files should be correctly highlighted, you have to define the mime type (more info is here):

  1. Create directory to override mime types, in the command line type 
    mkdirhier ~/.local/share/mime/packages
  2. Download the custom mime file Override.xml into this directory (if the file already exists, you have to copy the relevant lines by hand): 
    cd ~/.local/share/mime/packages
wget http://martin.ankerl.com/files/Override.xml
  3. Update the mime database by merging the file: 
    update-mime-database ~/.local/share/mime
  4. Restart nautilus (or logout & login again): 
    killall nautilus

There you go, Erlang code in all its glory. Happy hacking!

May 6, 2007 | Filed Under coding, erlang, linux, news, open source, tricks

4 Comments 

4 Responses to “Erlang Syntax Highlighting”

  1. Martin Ankerl on May 6th, 2007 7:25 pm

    The highlighting has one known bug: it cannot handle $” or $’ correctly. I don’t know how to fix this problem, can anyone help?

  2. Martin Ankerl on June 27th, 2007 6:59 pm

    Freedesktop has just added the mime type, which is the requirement for gtksourceview to add the highlighting file.
    see: http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=436528

  3. Anonymous on July 23rd, 2007 12:34 pm

    Thanks a lot!

    That’s what I’ve wished for!!!

    Cheers, Mathi

    P.S.: Maybe put it on cean? It took me a while to find it…

  4. pk stuff » Gedit and Kate Erlang Syntax Highlighting on October 28th, 2007 4:12 pm

    [...] Here’s a good recipe for syntax highlighting for gedit. [...]

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