ZX BASIC syntax highlighter

[patters]

I went down the considerable rabbit hole of making a syntax highlighter for ZX BASIC for the Linux/Mac/Windows code editor Sublime Text. It'll highlight regular .bas files too since it's a superset of Sinclair BASIC. It's nice to program for the Speccy on a modern editor at last

https://github.com/patters-syno/zx-basic-syntax

[chrisfoulds]

Awesome, will use that!

[Jbizzel]

Brilliant.

I can't get it to work though. It's not highlighting anything. I followed the instructions. I've never used sublime before, am.i doing something stupid? Please help

[patters]

I've just gone through the motions and it works for me, even on a completely fresh downloaded copy of Sublime.
Did you definitely put the syntax file inside the User folder, and not one level up?
And can you see ZX BASIC as a choice in the View > Syntax menu?

[equinox]

Technically I suppose you need slightly different rules for different models, e.g. on a +3 you can do COPY "..." TO SPECTRUM FORMAT, and on a 48k you can use the buggy MOVE a$,b$ (which I slipped into my CSSCGC entry) but that doesn't work on a +2a or +3. And of course the grey +2 has that weird exclamation-mark RAM-disc syntax, ERASE ! "myfile"

[patters]

As per the blurb on my GitHub the aim isn't to highlight all BASIC keywords though. Doing that just highlights most of the entire screen full of code in pink or purple which really isn't helpful. The compiler is already good at catching misspellings etc., so the real value this adds is code legibility and clarity. Since I copied the contexts from the built-in language support it offers some really neat stuff like if you hover the mouse over a function name you can jump to where it's defined, or to each mention of it in the code.

ZX BASIC is an updated BASIC dialect which compiles to optimised Z80 machine code for the ZX Spectrum computer. The Sublime Text editor, like the ZX BASIC compiler, runs on Linux, Mac OS, and Windows.

This syntax highlighter does not exhaustively match all BASIC keywords, rather its focus is code clarity. Mariana colour scheme (pictured) is recommended over the default Monokai, since some highlights are invisible in Monokai.

Highlighting Scope:

• Comment lines, comment blocks, inline assembly comments

• Strings including all escaped characters

• To avoid over-colouring, keywords are limited to conditionals and those controlling execution flow

• Sub and Function definitions and calls, although their calls are indistinguishable from array references (and strings without sigils) since the parser does not track objects

• Variable types, numbers, separators, operator symbols, and compiler keywords

[patters]

After exchanging PMs with [mention]Jbizzel[/mention] he confirmed he's got the syntax highlighter working. I have improved the instructions on the GitHub repo to make it easier to download the raw syntax file.

[Jbizzel]

After exchanging PMs with @JBizzel he confirmed he's got the syntax highlighter working. I have improved the instructions on the GitHub repo to make it easier to download the raw syntax file.

many thanks for your help - This works like a treat. Brilliant work. CGC2021 won't know what hit it lol

[Twig]

Very nifty.

I don't suppose there's a way of supporting other text editors, like Geany?

[C.Born]

Hi
I installed subliemeditor and the 2 sets of highlite

testing on a pure basic file it show the line number in BLUE but only up to 999
from 1000 and above they become orange like the INT values
is it ment to be that all line numbers are blue then you have a small typo/bug some where
i use linux mint21.
btw the INT value after a GO TO is orange aswell, is there a change that an INT after a GO TO or GO SUB is set in blue aswell?
cheers

EDIT:
if have another colour request, I use Fuse with +D emulation. the +D has a problem with printing CHR$ above 127, it wil send the IMAGE VALUE instead as a hex/dec value in the file that FUSE makes with "emulate printer" , next line holds severall UDG's as you can 'see'

1500 LET q$="=>?@K\00\00\00\00\00\00\00\00\00K\00\00\00\00\00\00\00\00\00K\00\00\00\00\00\00\00\00\00K\00\00\00\00\00\00\00\00\00K\00\00\00\00\00\00 \C0@K\00\00\00\00\00\00\00\00\00K\00\00\00\00\00\00\00\00\00K\00 \00\00\00\00\00\00\00K\00\00\00\00\00\00\00\00\00K\00\00`auQa=": GO SUB aa: PRINT #n;AT n,VAL "8";q$: GO SUB ui: PRINT #n;AT e,VAL "5";"Radio RefleXed Crystal": GO SUB aa

the characters CHANGE here inside the forum display, maybe its my linux
in subliem it look like
<0x1b>K<0x08>
and those hex values are printed in darkgrey, which is hard to read using a "darktheme". probably i can find that my self

about those characters above 127, i looked for a PC zx spectrum FONT but few have the correct blockgrafic-images 128 to 143.
if those where include perhaps a different solution is possible, but is supose thats a "subliem" request.
or even for the OS as its about system fonts. an realy adaptable UDG part is probably fantasy