# Highlight.js [![Build Status](https://travis-ci.org/isagalaev/highlight.js.svg?branch=master)](https://travis-ci.org/isagalaev/highlight.js) Highlight.js is a syntax highlighter written in JavaScript. It works in the browser as well as on the server. It works with pretty much any markup, doesn’t depend on any framework and has automatic language detection. ## Getting Started The bare minimum for using highlight.js on a web page is linking to the library along with one of the styles and calling [`initHighlightingOnLoad`][1]: ```html ``` This will find and highlight code inside of `
` tags; it tries
to detect the language automatically. If automatic detection doesn’t
work for you, you can specify the language in the `class` attribute:

```html
...
``` The list of supported language classes is available in the [class reference][2]. Classes can also be prefixed with either `language-` or `lang-`. To disable highlighting altogether use the `nohighlight` class: ```html
...
``` ## Custom Initialization When you need a bit more control over the initialization of highlight.js, you can use the [`highlightBlock`][3] and [`configure`][4] functions. This allows you to control *what* to highlight and *when*. Here’s an equivalent way to calling [`initHighlightingOnLoad`][1] using jQuery: ```javascript $(document).ready(function() { $('pre code').each(function(i, block) { hljs.highlightBlock(block); }); }); ``` You can use any tags instead of `
` to mark up your code. If
you don't use a container that preserve line breaks you will need to
configure highlight.js to use the `
` tag: ```javascript hljs.configure({useBR: true}); $('div.code').each(function(i, block) { hljs.highlightBlock(block); }); ``` For other options refer to the documentation for [`configure`][4]. ## Web Workers You can run highlighting inside a web worker to avoid freezing the browser window while dealing with very big chunks of code. In your main script: ```javascript addEventListener('load', function() { var code = document.querySelector('#code'); var worker = new Worker('worker.js'); worker.onmessage = function(event) { code.innerHTML = event.data; } worker.postMessage(code.textContent); }) ``` In worker.js: ```javascript onmessage = function(event) { importScripts('/highlight.pack.js'); var result = self.hljs.highlightAuto(event.data); postMessage(result.value); } ``` ## Getting the Library You can get highlight.js as a hosted, or custom-build, browser script or as a server module. Right out of the box the browser script supports both AMD and CommonJS, so if you wish you can use RequireJS or Browserify without having to build from source. The server module also works perfectly fine with Browserify, but there is the option to use a build specific to browsers rather than something meant for a server. Head over to the [download page][5] for all the options. **Note:** the library is not supposed to work straight from the source on GitHub; it requires building. If none of the pre-packaged options work for you refer to the [building documentation][6]. Also, if you are using something like almond, you need to use the optimizer to give the module a name. The basic example would be: ``` r.js -o name=hljs paths.hljs=/path/to/highlight out=highlight.js ``` ## License Highlight.js is released under the BSD License. See [LICENSE][7] file for details. ## Links The official site for the library is at . Further in-depth documentation for the API and other topics is at . Authors and contributors are listed in the [AUTHORS.en.txt][8] file. [1]: http://highlightjs.readthedocs.org/en/latest/api.html#inithighlightingonload [2]: http://highlightjs.readthedocs.org/en/latest/css-classes-reference.html [3]: http://highlightjs.readthedocs.org/en/latest/api.html#highlightblock-block [4]: http://highlightjs.readthedocs.org/en/latest/api.html#configure-options [5]: https://highlightjs.org/download/ [6]: http://highlightjs.readthedocs.org/en/latest/building-testing.html [7]: https://github.com/isagalaev/highlight.js/blob/master/LICENSE [8]: https://github.com/isagalaev/highlight.js/blob/master/AUTHORS.en.txt