Simplest Emacs syntax highlighting tutorial?

Question

I would like to create only a syntax highlighting minor mode for Emacs. I have the "Writing GNU Emacs Extensions" by O'Reilly, but it does not go into any depth of detail. Is there a simple tutorial for a real or fake programming language highlighting mode?

Thank you

Answer 1

Defining a custom Generic Mode is probably the best place to start. You can define basic syntax highlighting for a language as simply as the following snippet.

(require 'generic-x)

(define-generic-mode 
  'my-mode                          ;; name of the mode
  '("//")                           ;; comments delimiter
  '("function" "var" "return")      ;; some keywords
  '(("=" . 'font-lock-operator) 
    ("+" . 'font-lock-operator)     ;; some operators
    (";" . 'font-lock-builtin))     ;; a built-in 
  '("\\.myext$")                    ;; files that trigger this mode
   nil                              ;; any other functions to call
  "My custom highlighting mode"     ;; doc string
)

It's great for quickly defining some basic syntax highlighting for obscure languages. I even use it for log files in some cases.

Answer 2

You also might find it useful to look at this answer, which has a pointer to code that defines a minor mode to highlight certain key words - but only in strings and comments.

A minor mode is nicer if all you want is highlights - less baggage.

The relevant portions of the manual are for the function 'font-lock-add-keywords and the variable font-lock-keywords.

Answer 3

EmacsWiki's Mode tutorial has a little more information on creating a major mode, in case you want to expand from syntax highlighting only.