Last Updated: May 27, 2020
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7.407K
· borisguery

`cat` syntax highlighting

I use cat command everyday, it is very useful to take a quick look to a file, but when reading programmatic code, syntax highlighting is welcome.

An easy way to add a real syntax highlighting is to use the Pygments python package.

1) Install Pygments package

$ easy_install Pygments

2) Create an alias

Add this your .bashrc or .zshrc

alias cat="pygmentize -g"

3) Source your .rc file

$ . .zshrc

4) Try it!

$ cat app/autoload.php

Picture

19 Responses
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It seems that this pygmentize -g doesn't works for regular files and doesn't silently fail. I use a ccat alias instead, any idea for smarter way?

edit I miss the quote around the alias definition in my ~/.profie file /edit

over 1 year ago ·

A similar solution would be to use vim for syntax highlighting: http://hype-free.blogspot.ro/2011/09/using-less-with-syntax-highlight.html

over 1 year ago ·

cat output is a stream which can then be piped. I don't think vim can do that.

over 1 year ago ·

Excellent!

over 1 year ago ·

it works!

over 1 year ago ·

@opatry,

I did not experiment that, I'm running it with zsh & macosx.

What happens if you use echo "Some normal text" > test && pygmentize -g test?

over 1 year ago ·

@cdman, I already tried that but it was much slower for me.

over 1 year ago ·

@borisguery I'm using zsh too but on GNU/Linux.

Running directly pygmentize -g test works fine but when using an alias defined in my ~/.profile, I get this error:

alias ccat=pygmentize -g
$ ccat test
Error: no lexer for filename 'test' found

Direct pygmentize usage works like a charm:

$ pygmentize -g test
Some normal text

Very strange behavior…

over 1 year ago ·

Ok, got it, I missed the quotes on the alias definition… works fine now, nice tip!

over 1 year ago ·

(my last comment didn't get published…)
Finally, the answer is very simple, I missed the quotes around the command alias definition --'

Works fine now, thanks for the tip.

over 1 year ago ·

Btw, could i get html output with pygment?

over 1 year ago ·

Very nice tip!

over 1 year ago ·

I agree on using ccat instead of cat since pygmentize doesn't work for normal files :)

over 1 year ago ·

I agree on using ccat instead of cat since pygmentize doesn't work for normal files :)

over 1 year ago ·

I agree on using ccat instead of cat since pygmentize doesn't work for normal files :)

over 1 year ago ·

Thanks. I'd been using code-less (using the Vim trick). Now I have code-cat for quick dumps.

over 1 year ago ·

That's right

over 1 year ago ·

Great tip. I wrapped this up in another script where I use pygmentize if the file is recognizable by Pygments, and lolcat (https://github.com/busyloop/lolcat) if the file is not (I called this "cat.sh" and in my bashrc I alias cat to cat.sh):

#!/bin/sh
# if no file specified default to lolcat reading on stdin
if [ $# -eq 0 ]; then
    lolcat
else
    TYPE=$(pygmentize -N $1)

    if [ $TYPE = "text" ]; then
        lolcat $1
    else
        pygmentize $1
    fi
fi

It's also in Github: https://github.com/pzelnip/dotfiles/blob/master/bin/cat.sh

over 1 year ago ·

Great tip!

over 1 year ago ·