The full Pygments API — Pygments

- Home
- Languages
- Styles
- FAQ
- Get it
- Docs

# The full Pygments API

This page describes the Pygments API.

## High-level API

Functions from the `pygments` module:

pygments.lex(code, lexer)

  Lex code with the lexer (must be a Lexer instance) and return an iterable of tokens. Currently, this only calls lexer.get_tokens().

pygments.format(tokens, formatter, outfile=None)

  Format a token stream (iterable of tokens) tokens with the formatter (must be a Formatter instance). The result is written to outfile, or if that is `None`, returned as a string.

pygments.highlight(code, lexer, formatter, outfile=None)

  This is the most high-level highlighting function. It combines lex and format in one function.

Functions from `pygments.lexers`:

pygments.lexers.get_lexer_by_name(alias, **options)

  Return an instance of a Lexer subclass that has alias in its aliases list. The lexer is given the options at its instantiation.

  Will raise `pygments.util.ClassNotFound` if no lexer with that alias is found.

pygments.lexers.get_lexer_for_filename(fn, **options)

  Return a Lexer subclass instance that has a filename pattern matching fn. The lexer is given the options at its instantiation.

  Will raise `pygments.util.ClassNotFound` if no lexer for that filename is found.

pygments.lexers.get_lexer_for_mimetype(mime, **options)

  Return a Lexer subclass instance that has mime in its mimetype list. The lexer is given the options at its instantiation.

  Will raise `pygments.util.ClassNotFound` if not lexer for that mimetype is found.

pygments.lexers.load_lexer_from_file(filename, lexername='CustomLexer', **options)

  Return a Lexer subclass instance loaded from the provided file, relative to the current directory. The file is expected to contain a Lexer class named lexername (by default, CustomLexer). Users should be very careful with the input, because this method is equivalent to running eval on the input file. The lexer is given the options at its instantiation.

  `ClassNotFound` is raised if there are any errors loading the Lexer

  New in version 2.2.

pygments.lexers.guess_lexer(text, **options)

  Return a Lexer subclass instance that’s guessed from the text in text. For that, the `analyse_text()` method of every known lexer class is called with the text as argument, and the lexer which returned the highest value will be instantiated and returned.

  `pygments.util.ClassNotFound` is raised if no lexer thinks it can handle the content.

pygments.lexers.guess_lexer_for_filename(filename, text, **options)

  As `guess_lexer()`, but only lexers which have a pattern in filenames or alias_filenames that matches filename are taken into consideration.

  `pygments.util.ClassNotFound` is raised if no lexer thinks it can handle the content.

pygments.lexers.get_all_lexers()

  Return an iterable over all registered lexers, yielding tuples in the format:

      (longname, tuple of aliases, tuple of filename patterns, tuple of mimetypes)

  New in version 0.6.

pygments.lexers.find_lexer_class_by_name(alias)

  Return the Lexer subclass that has alias in its aliases list, without instantiating it.

  Will raise `pygments.util.ClassNotFound` if no lexer with that alias is found.

  New in version 2.2.

pygments.lexers.find_lexer_class(name)

  Return the Lexer subclass that with the name attribute as given by the name argument.

Functions from `pygments.formatters`:

pygments.formatters.get_formatter_by_name(alias, **options)

  Return an instance of a `Formatter` subclass that has alias in its aliases list. The formatter is given the options at its instantiation.

  Will raise `pygments.util.ClassNotFound` if no formatter with that alias is found.

pygments.formatters.get_formatter_for_filename(fn, **options)

  Return a `Formatter` subclass instance that has a filename pattern matching fn. The formatter is given the options at its instantiation.

  Will raise `pygments.util.ClassNotFound` if no formatter for that filename is found.

pygments.formatters.load_formatter_from_file(filename, formattername='CustomFormatter', **options)

  Return a Formatter subclass instance loaded from the provided file, relative to the current directory. The file is expected to contain a Formatter class named `formattername` (by default, CustomFormatter). Users should be very careful with the input, because this method is equivalent to running eval on the input file. The formatter is given the options at its instantiation.

  `ClassNotFound` is raised if there are any errors loading the Formatter

  New in version 2.2.

Functions from `pygments.styles`:

pygments.styles.get_style_by_name(name)

  Return a style class by its short name. The names of the builtin styles are listed in `pygments.styles.STYLE_MAP`.

  Will raise `pygments.util.ClassNotFound` if no style of that name is found.

pygments.styles.get_all_styles()

  Return an iterable over all registered styles, yielding their names.

  New in version 0.6.

## Lexers

The base lexer class from which all lexers are derived is:

class pygments.lexer.Lexer(**options)

  The constructor takes a **keywords dictionary of options. Every subclass must first process its own options and then call the Lexer constructor, since it processes the stripnl, stripall and tabsize options.

  An example looks like this:

      def __init__(self, **options):
          self.compress = options.get('compress', '')
          Lexer.__init__(self, **options)

  As these options must all be specifiable as strings (due to the command line usage), there are various utility functions available to help with that, see Option processing.

  get_tokens(text)

    This method is the basic interface of a lexer. It is called by the highlight() function. It must process the text and return an iterable of `(tokentype, value)` pairs from text.

    Normally, you don’t need to override this method. The default implementation processes the stripnl, stripall and tabsize options and then yields all tokens from get_tokens_unprocessed(), with the `index` dropped.

  get_tokens_unprocessed(text)

    This method should process the text and return an iterable of `(index, tokentype, value)` tuples where `index` is the starting position of the token within the input text.

    This method must be overridden by subclasses.

  static analyse_text(text)

    A static method which is called for lexer guessing. It should analyse the text and return a float in the range from `0.0` to `1.0`. If it returns `0.0`, the lexer will not be selected as the most probable one, if it returns `1.0`, it will be selected immediately.

    Note

    You don’t have to add `@staticmethod` to the definition of this method, this will be taken care of by the Lexer’s metaclass.

  For a list of known tokens have a look at the Builtin Tokens page.

  A lexer also can have the following attributes (in fact, they are mandatory except alias_filenames) that are used by the builtin lookup mechanism.

  name

    Full name for the lexer, in human-readable form.

  aliases

    A list of short, unique identifiers that can be used to lookup the lexer from a list, e.g. using get_lexer_by_name().

  filenames

    A list of fnmatch patterns that match filenames which contain content for this lexer. The patterns in this list should be unique among all lexers.

  alias_filenames

    A list of fnmatch patterns that match filenames which may or may not contain content for this lexer. This list is used by the `guess_lexer_for_filename()` function, to determine which lexers are then included in guessing the correct one. That means that e.g. every lexer for HTML and a template language should include `\*.html` in this list.

  mimetypes

    A list of MIME types for content that can be lexed with this lexer.

## Formatters

A formatter is derived from this class:

class pygments.formatter.Formatter(**options)

  As with lexers, this constructor processes options and then must call the base class `__init__()`.

  The `Formatter` class recognizes the options style, full and title. It is up to the formatter class whether it uses them.

  get_style_defs(arg='')

    This method must return statements or declarations suitable to define the current style for subsequent highlighted text (e.g. CSS classes in the HTMLFormatter).

    The optional argument arg can be used to modify the generation and is formatter dependent (it is standardized because it can be given on the command line).

    This method is called by the `-S` command-line option, the arg is then given by the `-a` option.

  format(tokensource, outfile)

    This method must format the tokens from the tokensource iterable and write the formatted version to the file object outfile.

    Formatter options can control how exactly the tokens are converted.

  New in version 0.7: A formatter must have the following attributes that are used by the builtin lookup mechanism.

  name

    Full name for the formatter, in human-readable form.

  aliases

    A list of short, unique identifiers that can be used to lookup the formatter from a list, e.g. using `get_formatter_by_name()`.

  filenames

    A list of `fnmatch` patterns that match filenames for which this formatter can produce output. The patterns in this list should be unique among all formatters.

## Option processing

The `pygments.util` module has some utility functions usable for processing command line options. All of the following functions get values from a dictionary of options. If the value is already in the type expected by the option, it is returned as-is. Otherwise, if the value is a string, it is first converted to the expected type if possible.

exception pygments.util.OptionError

  This exception will be raised by all option processing functions if the type or value of the argument is not correct.

pygments.util.get_bool_opt(options, optname, default=None)

  Intuitively, this is options.get(optname, default), but restricted to Boolean value. The Booleans can be represented as string, in order to accept Boolean value from the command line arguments. If the key optname is present in the dictionary options and is not associated with a Boolean, raise an OptionError. If it is absent, default is returned instead.

  The valid string values for `True` are `1`, `yes`, `true` and `on`, the ones for `False` are `0`, `no`, `false` and `off` (matched case-insensitively).

pygments.util.get_int_opt(options, optname, default=None)

  As `get_bool_opt()`, but interpret the value as an integer.

pygments.util.get_list_opt(options, optname, default=None)

  If the key optname from the dictionary options is a string, split it at whitespace and return it. If it is already a list or a tuple, it is returned as a list.

pygments.util.get_choice_opt(options, optname, allowed, default=None)

  If the key optname from the dictionary is not in the sequence allowed, raise an error, otherwise return it.

  New in version 0.8.