PHP Manual: Syntax highlighting of a string

Description

mixed highlight_string ( string $str [, bool $return = false ] )

Outputs or returns html markup for a syntax highlighted version of the given PHP code using the colors defined in the built-in syntax highlighter for PHP.

Parameters

str: The PHP code to be highlighted. This should include the opening tag.
return: Set this parameter to TRUE to make this function return the highlighted code.

Return Values

If return is set to TRUE, returns the highlighted code as a string instead of printing it out. Otherwise, it will return TRUE on success, FALSE on failure.

Changelog

Version	Description
4.2.0	The `return` parameter was added.

Examples

Example #1 highlight_string example


<?php
highlight_string('<?php phpinfo(); ?>');
?>

The above example will output (in PHP 4):

<code><font color="#000000">
<font color="#0000BB">&lt;?php phpinfo</font><font color="#007700">(); </font><font color="#0000BB">?&gt;</font>
</font>
</code>

The above example will output (in PHP 5):

<code><span style="color: #000000">
<span style="color: #0000BB">&lt;?php phpinfo</span><span style="color: #007700">(); </span><span style="color: #0000BB">?&gt;</span>
</span>
</code>

Notes

Note:
When the return parameter is used, this function uses internal output buffering so it cannot be used inside an ob_start callback function.

The HTML markup generated is subject to change.

highlight_string