Language Definition v2.0 Introduction

Introduction to the GtkSourceView language definition files.

Purpose

The primary purpose of a language definition file (a *.lang file) is to add support for syntax highlighting for a specific language.

About the versions

We need to distinguish:

• The GtkSourceView library versions.
• The language definition file format versions.

The file format is at version 2 and is supported by the GtkSourceView library versions 2 to 5.

Directories

To find *.lang files, GtkSourceView looks by default at several directories, relying on the XDG Base Directory Specification.

On Linux it is usually:

• ~/.local/share/gtksourceview-5/language-specs/ for custom *.lang files.
• /usr/share/gtksourceview-5/language-specs/ for the *.lang files installed by GtkSourceView 5.

More precisely:

• ${XDG_DATA_HOME}/gtksourceview-${GSV_API_VERSION}/language-specs/ used in priority.
• ${data_dir}/gtksourceview-${GSV_API_VERSION}/language-specs/ for each data_dir of ${XDG_DATA_DIRS}.

Replace ${GSV_API_VERSION} by 5 for GtkSourceView 5.

List of *.lang files shipped by GtkSourceView

To see if a language is supported by GtkSourceView, see the list of *.lang files in the Git repository.