Code Syntax Highlighting in Your Terminal

Here's a quick trick using the Python library pygments to enable pretty colors in your terminal when viewing source code. It detects which syntax highlighter to use by the file's extension.

by flipperpa on Dec. 19, 2017, 2:50 p.m.

Python Linux

I'm a terminal command line basher (see what I did there?). While I understand the appeal of IDEs, I tend to create from the command line. I use Sublime as a lightweight text editor, but for everything else, I like to tickle the keys. I started using computers before the GUI era, and it has stuck with me. It might also have something to do with the fact I took piano lessons for many years!

Piano Keyboard
I love the tickle the keys!

One trick I waited far too long to implement was to get a good syntax highlighter at the command line. It is relatively straight forward. First, I install the Python package pygments system-wide with pip.

sudo pip install pygments

Next, I create an alias in my home directories .bashrc file. I'll add line numbers for good measure.

alias ccat='pygmentize -O style=monokai,linenos=1 -f terminal -g'

After doing this, I now have a colored cat command, or ccat. It can be used as follows, with pretty results.

$ ccat settings.py
0001: from django.conf import settings
0002:
0003: from .models import Settings
0004:
0005:
0006: def get_setting(key, default):
0007:     """
0008:     Returns a value for key from the Settings model.
0009:     """
0010:     setting = Settings.objects.get(key=key)
0011:
0012:
0013: def get_clear_cache():
0014:     """
0015:     Default to clearing the cache after each page edit.
0016:     """
0017:
0018:     return getattr(settings, "WP_CLEAR_CACHE", False)

Small things like this help make me a better developer. It makes source code in the terminal very clear, and pygments supports a vast array of languages for highlighting.