I’ve just extended my parser toolkit, canto34. Canto 34 is a library for building recursive-descent parsers. It can be used both on node.js, and in the browser as an AMD module.

Starting in v0.0.5, I’ve added a function to let you generate a `.tmLanguage` file. This is the syntax highlighting system of TextMate, Sublime Text, Atom, and Visual Studio code.

This is actually pretty sweet; it makes your language feel a bit more ‘first class’ when you get the richer IDE experience.

You first generate the file content, then save it wherever your text editor demands. For example, To use it with Sublime Text 3 on windows, call code like so, swapping `{myusername}` with the name of your user account;

 var content = canto34.tmLanguage.generateTmLanguageDefinition(lexer);    require(‘fs’).writeFileSync(“C:\\Users\\{myusername}\\AppData\\Roaming\\Sublime Text 3\\Packages\\User\\myparser.tmLanguage”, content);

This will write out a syntax highlighting file into your User folder, which is a personal ‘dumping ground’ for configuration bits and pieces on your machine for Sublime Text. When you restart ST, you’ll see your language in the list of language options, displayed in the bottom-right.

You’ll need to configure the tokens in your lexer a bit more. For example, if you have a variable name token, you’ll need to tell the lexer that this should be highlighted one way, and if you have a keyword like ‘for’, you’ll use another. Do this with the `roles` option on a token type;

    lexer.addTokenType({ name: “comment”, ignore: true, regexp: /^#.*/, role: [“comment”, “line”] });

lexer.addTokenType(types.constant(“for”,”for”, [“keyword”]));

lexer.addTokenType(types.constant(“[“, “openSquare”, [“punctuation”]));

lexer.addTokenType(types.constant(“]”, “closeSquare”, [“punctuation”]));

The list of roles isn’t clear to me – I’ve just figured out some key ones like `keyword`, `comment`, and `punctuation` from reverse engineering existing `tmLanguage` files.

Find out more on GitHub or NPM.