How to write an emacs mode for a new language?

Question

I would like to write an emacs major mode for a 4GL. Can some one show me a tutorial. As far as i googled i was able to find only this broken link http://two-wugs.net/emacs/mode-tutorial.html

Answer 1

There is a blog series on writing a new python-mode in emacs. It's not a tutorial but it may point you in the right direction.

Answer 2

Complete tutorial on EmacsWiki "Mode Tutorial"

An Emacs language mode creation tutorial

Answer 3

If you're lazy, one easy way is to extend generic-mode to know about your new language:

http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki/GenericMode

I do this a lot for config files for applications that I work with a lot to get decent syntax highlighting. Here's one I did for the asterisk PBX a long time ago as an example.

Answer 4

Prabu, did you ever finish that mode? I found Harry Bochner's from 1991 but it doesn't contain syntax highlighting.