set-tab-width {INTEGER width}

Sets the tab width to the number width.

set-indent-width {INTEGER width}

Sets the indentation width to the number width. Used only if you are indenting with spaces.

set-word-wrap-column {INTEGER width}

Sets the line width for hard wrapping to width. This is used if you are having your text wrapped automatically.

set-icon-border {BOOLEAN enable}

Sets the visibility of the icon border.

set-folding-markers {BOOLEAN enable}

Sets the visibility of the folding markers pane.

set-line-numbers {BOOLEAN enable}

Sets the visibility of the line numbers pane.

set-replace-tabs {BOOLEAN enable}

If enabled, tabs are replaced with spaces as you type.

set-remove-trailing-space {BOOLEAN enable}

If enabled, trailing whitespace is removed whenever the cursor leaves a line.

set-show-tabs {BOOLEAN enable}

If enabled, TAB characters and trailing whitespace will be visualized by a small dot.

set-show-indent {BOOLEAN enable}

If enabled, indentation will be visualized by a vertical dotted line.

set-indent-spaces {BOOLEAN enable}

If enabled, the editor will indent with indent-width spaces for each indentation level, rather than with one TAB character.

set-mixed-indent {BOOLEAN enable}

If enabled, KatePart will use a mix of TAB and spaces for indentation. Each indentation level will be indent-width wide, and more indentation levels will be optimized to use as many TAB characters as possible.

When executed, this command will additionally set space indentation enabled, and if the indent width is unspecified it will be set to half of the tab-width for the document at the time of execution.

set-word-wrap {BOOLEAN enable}

Enables dynamic word wrap according to enable.

set-replace-tabs-save {BOOLEAN enable }

When enabled, tabs will be replaced with whitespace whenever the document is saved.

set-remove-trailing-space-save {BOOLEAN enable}

When enabled, trailing space will be removed from each line whenever the document is saved.

set-indent-mode {STRING name}

Sets the autoindentation mode to name. If name is not known, the mode is set to 'none'. Valid modes are 'none', 'normal', 'cstyle', 'haskell', 'lilypond', 'lisp', 'python', 'ruby' and 'xml'.

set-auto-ident {BOOLEAN script}

Enable or disable autoindentation.

set-highlight {STRING highlight}

Sets the syntax highlighting system for the document. The argument must be a valid highlight name, as seen in the Tools → Highlighting menu. This command provides an autocompletion list for its argument.

reload-scripts

Reload all JavaScript scripts used by Kate, including indenters and command line scripts.

set-mode {STRING mode}

Choose the filetype scheme for the current document.

nn[oremap] {STRING original} {STRING mapped}

Map the key sequence original to mapped.

indent

Indents the selected lines or the current line.

unindent

Unindents the selected lines or current line.

cleanindent

Cleans up the indentation of the selected lines or current line according to the indentation settings in the document.

comment

Inserts comment markers to make the selection or selected lines or current line a comment according to the text format as defined by the syntax highlight definition for the document.

uncomment

Removes comment markers from the selection or selected lines or current line according to the text format as defined by the syntax highlight definition for the document.

kill-line

Deletes the current line.

replace { STRING pattern} {STRING replacement}

Replaces text matching pattern with replacement. If you want to include whitespace in the pattern, you must quote both the pattern and replacement with single or double quotes. If the arguments are unquoted, the first word is used as pattern and the rest for replacement. If replacement is empty, each occurrence of pattern is removed.

You can set flags to configure the search by adding a colon, followed by one or more letters each representing a configuration, giving the form replace:options pattern replacement. Available options are:

b

Search backwards.

c

Search from cursor position.

e

Search in the selection only.

r

Do regular expression search. If set, you may use \N where N is a number to represent captures in the replacement string.

s

Do case sensitive search.

p

Prompt for permission to replace the next occurrence.

w

Match whole words only.

date {STRING format}

Inserts a date/time string as defined by the specified format, or the format “yyyy-MM-dd hh:mm:ss” if none is specified. The following translations are done when interpreting format:

d	The day as number without a leading zero (1-31).
dd	The day as number with a leading zero (01-31).
ddd	The abbreviated localized day name (e.g. 'Mon'..'Sun').
dddd	The long localized day name (e.g. 'Monday'..'Sunday').
M	The month as number without a leading zero (1-12).
MM	The month as number with a leading zero (01-12).
MMMM	The long localized month name (e.g. 'January'..'December').
MMM	The abbreviated localized month name (e.g. 'Jan'..'Dec').
yy	The year as two digit number (00-99).
yyyy	The year as four digit number (1752-8000).
h	The hour without a leading zero (0..23 or 1..12 if AM/PM display).
hh	The hour with a leading zero (00..23 or 01..12 if AM/PM display).
m	The minute without a leading zero (0..59).
mm	The minute with a leading zero (00..59).
s	The second without a leading zero (0..59).
ss	The second with a leading zero (00..59).
z	The milliseconds without leading zeroes (0..999).
zzz	The milliseconds with leading zeroes (000..999).
AP	Use AM/PM display. AP will be replaced by either "AM" or "PM".
ap	Use am/pm display. ap will be replaced by either "am" or "pm".

char {STRING identifier}

This command allows you to insert literal characters by their numerical identifier, in decimal, octal or hexadecimal form. To use it launch the Editing Command dialog and type char: [number] in the entry box, then hit OK.

Example 5.1. char examples

Input: char:234

Output: ê

Input: char:0x1234

Output: ሴ

s///[ig] %s///[ig]

This command does a sed-like search/replace operation on the current line, or on the whole file (%s///).

In short, the text is searched for text matching the search pattern, the regular expression between the first and the second slash, and when a match is found, the matching part of the text is replaced with the expression between the second and last slash. Parentheses in the search pattern create back references, that is the command remembers which part of the string matched in the parentheses; these strings can be reused in the replace pattern, referred to as \1 for the first set of parentheses, \2 for the second and so on.

To search for a literal ( or ), you need to escape it using a backslash character: \(\)

If you put an i at the end of the expression, the matching will be case insensitive. If you put a g at the end, all occurrences of the pattern will be replaced, otherwise only the first occurrence is replaced.

Example 5.2. Replacing text in the current line

Your friendly compiler just stopped, telling you that the class myClass mentioned in line 3902 in your source file is not defined.

"Buckle!" you think, it is of course MyClass. You go to line 3902, and instead of trying to find the word in the text, you launch the Editing Command Dialog, enter s/myclass/MyClass/i, hit the OK button, save the file and compile – successfully without the error.

Example 5.3. Replacing text in the whole file

Imagine that you have a file, in which you mention a “Miss Jensen” several times, when someone comes in and tells you that she just got married to “Mr Jones”. You want, of course, to replace each and every occurrence of “Miss Jensen” with “Ms Jones”.

Enter the command line and issue the command %s/Miss Jensen/Ms Jones/ and hit return, you are done.

Example 5.4. A More Advanced Example

This example makes use of back references as well as a character class (if you do not know what that is, please refer to the related documentation mentioned below).

Suppose you have the following line:

void MyClass::DoStringOps( String      &foo, String &bar, String *p, int  &a, int &b )

Now you realize that this is not nice code, and decide that you want to use the const keyword for all “address of” arguments, those characterized by the & operator in front of the argument name. You would also like to simplify the white space, so that there is only 1 whitespace character between each word.

Launch the Editing Command Dialog, and enter: s/\s+(\w+)\s+(&)/ const \1 \2/g and hit the OK button. The g at the end of the expression makes the regular expression recompile for each match to save the backreferences.

Output: void MyClass::DoStringOps( const String &foo, const String &bar, String *p, const int &a, const int &b )

Mission completed! Now, what happened? Well, we looked for some white space (\s+) followed by one or more alphabetic characters (\w+) followed by some more whitespace (\s+) followed by an ampersand, and in the process saved the alphabetic chunk and the ampersand for reuse in the replace operation. Then we replaced the matching part of our line with one whitespace followed by “const” followed by one whitespace followed by our saved alphabetical chunk (\1) followed by one whitespace followed by our saved ampersand (\2)

Now in some cases the alphabetical chunk was “String”, in some “int”, so using the character class \w and the + quantifier proved a valuable asset.

sort

Sorts the selected text or entire document.

natsort

Sort the selected lines or entire document naturally.

Example 5.5. sort vs. natsort

sort(a10, a1, a2) results in a1, a10, a2

natsort(a10, a1, a2) results in a1, a2, a10

moveLinesDown

Move selected lines down.

moveLinesUp

Move selected lines up.

uniq

Remove duplicated lines from the selected text or the whole document.

rtrim

Remove trailing space from the selected text or the whole document.

ltrim

Remove leading space from the selected text or the whole document.

join [STRING separator]

Join selected lines or whole document. Optionally takes a parameter defining a separator, for example: join ', '

rmblank

Remove all blank spaces from the selected text or the whole document.

unwrap

Unwrap the selected text or the whole document.

each {STRING script}

Given a JavaScript function as an argument, call that for the list of selected lines and replace them with the return value of that callback.

Example 5.6. Join selected lines

each 'function(lines){return lines.join(", ")}'

Or, more briefly:

each 'lines.join(", ")'

filter {STRING script}

Given a JavaScript function as an argument, call that for the list of selected lines and remove those where the callback returns false.

Example 5.7. Remove blank lines

filter 'function(1){return 1.length > 0;}'

Or, more briefly:

filter 'line.length > 0'

map {STRING script}

Given a JavaScript function as an argument, call that for the list of selected lines and replace the line with the value of the callback.

Example 5.8. Remove blank lines

map 'function(line){return line.replace(/^s+/,"");}'

Or, more briefly:

map 'line.replace(/^s+/,"")'

duplicateLinesUp

Duplicate the selected lines above the current selection.

duplicateLinesDown

Duplicate the selected lines below the current selection.

goto {INT line}

This command navigates to the specified line.

grep {STRING pattern}

Search the document for the regular expression pattern. For more information, see Appendix A, Regular Expressions

find {STRING pattern}

This command navigates to the first occurrence of pattern according to the configuration. Following occurrences can be found using Edit → Find Next (the default shortcut is F3).

The find command can be configured by appending a colon followed by one or more options, the form is find:options pattern. The following options are supported:

b

Search backwards.

c

Search from cursor position.

e

Search in the selection only.

r

Do regular expression search. If set, you may use \N where N is a number to represent captures in the replacement string.

s

Do case sensitive search.

w

Match whole words only.

ifind {STRING pattern}

This command provides “as-you-type” searching. You can configure the behavior of the search by appending a colon followed by one or more options, like this: ifind:options pattern. Allowed options are

b

Search backwards.

r

Do regular expression search.

s

Do case sensitive search.

c

Search from cursor position.

w

Save the current document.

wa

Save all currently open documents.

q

Close the current document.

qa

Close all open documents.

wq

Save and close the current document.

wqa

Save and close all currently open documents.

x

Save and close the current document only if it has changed.

x

Save and close all currently open documents only if they have changed.

bp

Go to the previous document in the documents list.

bn

Go to the next document in the documents list.

new

Open a new document in horizontal split view.

vnew

Open a new document in vertical split view.

e

Reload the current document if it has changed on disk.

enew

Edit a new document.

print

Open the Print dialog to print the current document.

Main sections of KatePart Highlight Definition files

A highlighting file contains a header that sets the XML version:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

The root of the definition file is the element language. Available attributes are:

Required attributes:

name sets the name of the language. It appears in the menus and dialogs afterwards.

section specifies the category.

extensions defines file extensions, such as "*.cpp;*.h"

version specifies the current revision of the definition file in terms of an integer number. Whenever you change a highlighting definition file, make sure to increase this number.

kateversion specifies the latest supported KatePart version.

Optional attributes:

mimetype associates files MIME type.

casesensitive defines, whether the keywords are case sensitive or not.

priority is necessary if another highlight definition file uses the same extensions. The higher priority will win.

author contains the name of the author and his email-address.

license contains the license, usually the MIT license for new syntax-highlighting files.

style contains the provided language and is used by the indenters for the attribute required-syntax-style.

hidden defines whether the name should appear in KatePart's menus.

So the next line may look like this:

<language name="C++" version="1" kateversion="2.4" section="Sources" extensions="*.cpp;*.h" />

Next comes the highlighting element, which contains the optional element list and the required elements contexts and itemDatas.

list elements contain a list of keywords. In this case the keywords are class and const. You can add as many lists as you need.

The contexts element contains all contexts. The first context is by default the start of the highlighting. There are two rules in the context Normal Text, which match the list of keywords with the name somename and a rule that detects a quote and switches the context to string. To learn more about rules read the next chapter.

The third part is the itemDatas element. It contains all color and font styles needed by the contexts and rules. In this example, the itemData Normal Text, String and Keyword are used.

  <highlighting>
    <list name="somename">
      <item> class </item>
      <item> const </item>
    </list>
    <contexts>
      <context attribute="Normal Text" lineEndContext="#pop" name="Normal Text" >
        <keyword attribute="Keyword" context="#stay" String="somename" />
        <DetectChar attribute="String" context="string" char="&quot;" />
      </context>
      <context attribute="String" lineEndContext="#stay" name="string" >
        <DetectChar attribute="String" context="#pop" char="&quot;" />
      </context>
    </contexts>
    <itemDatas>
      <itemData name="Normal Text" defStyleNum="dsNormal" />
      <itemData name="Keyword" defStyleNum="dsKeyword" />
      <itemData name="String" defStyleNum="dsString" />
    </itemDatas>
  </highlighting>

The last part of a highlight definition is the optional general section. It may contain information about keywords, code folding, comments and indentation.

The comment section defines with what string a single line comment is introduced. You also can define a multiline comment using multiLine with the additional attribute end. This is used if the user presses the corresponding shortcut for comment/uncomment.

The keywords section defines whether keyword lists are case sensitive or not. Other attributes will be explained later.

  <general>
    <comments>
      <comment name="singleLine" start="#"/>
    </comments>
    <keywords casesensitive="1"/>
  </general>
</language>

The element context belongs in the group contexts. A context itself defines context specific rules such as what should happen if the highlight system reaches the end of a line. Available attributes are:

name states the context name. Rules will use this name to specify the context to switch to if the rule matches.

lineEndContext defines the context the highlight system switches to if it reaches the end of a line. This may either be a name of another context, #stay to not switch the context (e.g.. do nothing) or #pop which will cause it to leave this context. It is possible to use for example #pop#pop#pop to pop three times, or even #pop#pop!OtherContext to pop two times and switch to the context named OtherContext.

lineEmptyContext defines the context if an empty line is encountered. Default: #stay.

fallthrough defines if the highlight system switches to the context specified in fallthroughContext if no rule matches. Default: false.

fallthroughContext specifies the next context if no rule matches.

dynamic if true, the context remembers strings/placeholders saved by dynamic rules. This is needed for HERE documents for example. Default: false.

The element itemData is in the group itemDatas. It defines the font style and colors. So it is possible to define your own styles and colors. However, we recommend you stick to the default styles if possible so that the user will always see the same colors used in different languages. Though, sometimes there is no other way and it is necessary to change color and font attributes. The attributes name and defStyleNum are required, the others are optional. Available attributes are:

name sets the name of the itemData. Contexts and rules will use this name in their attribute attribute to reference an itemData.

defStyleNum defines which default style to use. Available default styles are explained in detail later.

color defines a color. Valid formats are '#rrggbb' or '#rgb'.

selColor defines the selection color.

italic if true, the text will be italic.

bold if true, the text will be bold.

underline if true, the text will be underlined.

strikeout if true, the text will be struck out.

spellChecking if true, the text will be spellchecked.

The element keywords in the group general defines keyword properties. Available attributes are:

casesensitive may be true or false. If true, all keywords are matched case sensitively.

weakDeliminator is a list of characters that do not act as word delimiters. For example, the dot '.' is a word delimiter. Assume a keyword in a list contains a dot, it will only match if you specify the dot as a weak delimiter.

additionalDeliminator defines additional delimiters.

wordWrapDeliminator defines characters after which a line wrap may occur.

Default delimiters and word wrap delimiters are the characters .():!+,-<=>%&*/;?[]^{|}~\, space (' ') and tabulator ('\t').

The element comment in the group comments defines comment properties which are used for Tools → Comment and Tools → Uncomment. Available attributes are:

name is either singleLine or multiLine. If you choose multiLine the attributes end and region are required.

start defines the string used to start a comment. In C++ this would be "/*".

end defines the string used to close a comment. In C++ this would be "*/".

region should be the name of the foldable multiline comment. Assume you have beginRegion="Comment" ... endRegion="Comment" in your rules, you should use region="Comment". This way uncomment works even if you do not select all the text of the multiline comment. The cursor only must be in the multiline comment.

The element folding in the group general defines code folding properties. Available attributes are:

indentationsensitive if true, the code folding markers will be added indentation based, as in the scripting language Python. Usually you do not need to set it, as it defaults to false.

The element indentation in the group general defines which indenter will be used. However, we strongly recommend you omit this element, as the indenter usually will be set by either defining a File Type or by adding a mode line to the text file. If you specify an indenter though, you will force a specific indentation on the user, which he might not like at all. Available attributes are:

mode is the name of the indenter. Available indenters right now are: normal, cstyle, haskell, lilypond, lisp, python, ruby and xml.

General default styles:

dsNormal, when no special highlighting is required.

dsKeyword, built-in language keywords.

dsFunction, function calls and definitions.

dsVariable, if applicable: variable names (e.g. $someVar in PHP/Perl).

dsControlFlow, control flow keywords like if, else, switch, break, return, yield, ...

dsOperator, operators like + - * / :: < >

dsBuiltIn, built-in functions, classes, and objects.

dsExtension, common extensions, such as Qt classes and functions/macros in C++ and Python.

dsPreprocessor, preprocessor statements or macro definitions.

dsAttribute, annotations such as @override and __declspec(...).

String-related default styles:

dsChar, single characters, such as 'x'.

dsSpecialChar, chars with special meaning in strings such as escapes, substitutions, or regex operators.

dsString, strings like "hello world".

dsVerbatimString, verbatim or raw strings like 'raw \backlash' in Perl, CoffeeScript, and shells, as well as r'\raw' in Python.

dsSpecialString, SQL, regexes, HERE docs, LaTeX math mode, ...

dsImport, import, include, require of modules.

Number-related default styles:

dsDataType, built-in data types like int, void, u64.

dsDecVal, decimal values.

dsBaseN, values with a base other than 10.

dsFloat, floating point values.

dsConstant, built-in and user defined constants like PI.

Comment and documentation-related default styles:

dsComment, comments.

dsDocumentation, /** Documentation comments */ or """docstrings""".

dsAnnotation, documentation commands like @param, @brief.

dsCommentVar, the variable names used in above commands, like "foobar" in @param foobar.

dsRegionMarker, region markers like //BEGIN, //END in comments.

Other default styles:

dsInformation, notes and tips like @note in doxygen.

dsWarning, warnings like @warning in doxygen.

dsAlert, special words like TODO, FIXME, XXXX.

dsError, error highlighting and wrong syntax.

dsOthers, when nothing else fits.

DetectChar

Detect a single specific character. Commonly used for example to find the ends of quoted strings.

<DetectChar char="(character)" (common attributes) (dynamic) />

The char attribute defines the character to match.

Detect2Chars

Detect two specific characters in a defined order.

<Detect2Chars char="(character)" char1="(character)" (common attributes) (dynamic) />

The char attribute defines the first character to match, char1 the second.

AnyChar

Detect one character of a set of specified characters.

<AnyChar String="(string)" (common attributes) />

The String attribute defines the set of characters.

StringDetect

Detect an exact string.

<StringDetect String="(string)" [insensitive="true|false"] (common attributes) (dynamic) />

The String attribute defines the string to match. The insensitive attribute defaults to false and is passed to the string comparison function. If the value is true insensitive comparing is used.

WordDetect

Detect an exact string but additionally require word boundaries such as a dot '.' or a whitespace on the beginning and the end of the word. Think of \b<string>\b in terms of a regular expression, but it is faster than the rule RegExpr.

<WordDetect String="(string)" [insensitive="true|false"] (common attributes) (dynamic) />

The String attribute defines the string to match. The insensitive attribute defaults to false and is passed to the string comparison function. If the value is true insensitive comparing is used.

Since: Kate 3.5 (KDE 4.5)

RegExpr

Matches against a regular expression.

<RegExpr String="(string)" [insensitive="true|false"] [minimal="true|false"] (common attributes) (dynamic) />

The String attribute defines the regular expression.

insensitive defaults to false and is passed to the regular expression engine.

minimal defaults to false and is passed to the regular expression engine.

Because the rules are always matched against the beginning of the current string, a regular expression starting with a caret (^) indicates that the rule should only be matched against the start of a line.

See Regular Expressions for more information on those.

keyword

Detect a keyword from a specified list.

<keyword String="(list name)" (common attributes) />

The String attribute identifies the keyword list by name. A list with that name must exist.

The highlighting system processes keyword rules in a very optimized way. This makes it an absolute necessity that any keywords to be matched need to be surrounded by defined delimiters, either implied (the default delimiters), or explicitly specified within the additionalDeliminator property of the keywords tag.

If a keyword to be matched shall contain a delimiter character, this respective character must be added to the weakDeliminator property of the keywords tag. This character will then loose its delimiter property in all keyword rules.

Int

Detect an integer number.

<Int (common attributes) (dynamic) />

This rule has no specific attributes. Child rules are typically used to detect combinations of L and U after the number, indicating the integer type in program code. Actually all rules are allowed as child rules, though, the DTD only allows the child rule StringDetect.

The following example matches integer numbers follows by the character 'L'.

<Int attribute="Decimal" context="#stay" >
  <StringDetect attribute="Decimal" context="#stay" String="L" insensitive="true"/>
</Int>

Float

Detect a floating point number.

<Float (common attributes) />

This rule has no specific attributes. AnyChar is allowed as a child rule and typically used to detect combinations, see rule Int for reference.

HlCOct

Detect an octal point number representation.

<HlCOct (common attributes) />

This rule has no specific attributes.

HlCHex

Detect a hexadecimal number representation.

<HlCHex (common attributes) />

This rule has no specific attributes.

HlCStringChar

Detect an escaped character.

<HlCStringChar (common attributes) />

This rule has no specific attributes.

It matches literal representations of characters commonly used in program code, for example \n (newline) or \t (TAB).

The following characters will match if they follow a backslash (\): abefnrtv"'?\. Additionally, escaped hexadecimal numbers such as for example \xff and escaped octal numbers, for example \033 will match.

HlCChar

Detect an C character.

<HlCChar (common attributes) />

This rule has no specific attributes.

It matches C characters enclosed in a tick (Example: 'c'). The ticks may be a simple character or an escaped character. See HlCStringChar for matched escaped character sequences.

RangeDetect

Detect a string with defined start and end characters.

<RangeDetect char="(character)"  char1="(character)" (common attributes) />

char defines the character starting the range, char1 the character ending the range.

Useful to detect for example small quoted strings and the like, but note that since the highlighting engine works on one line at a time, this will not find strings spanning over a line break.

LineContinue

Matches a specified char at the end of a line.

<LineContinue (common attributes) [char="\"] />

char optional character to match, default is backslash ('\'). New since KDE 4.13.

This rule is useful for switching context at end of line. This is needed for example in C/C++ to continue macros or strings.

IncludeRules

Include rules from another context or language/file.

<IncludeRules context="contextlink" [includeAttrib="true|false"] />

The context attribute defines which context to include.

If it is a simple string it includes all defined rules into the current context, example:

<IncludeRules context="anotherContext" />

If the string contains a ## the highlight system will look for a context from another language definition with the given name, for example

<IncludeRules context="String##C++" />

would include the context String from the C++ highlighting definition.

If includeAttrib attribute is true, change the destination attribute to the one of the source. This is required to make, for example, commenting work, if text matched by the included context is a different highlight from the host context.

DetectSpaces

Detect whitespaces.

<DetectSpaces (common attributes) />

This rule has no specific attributes.

Use this rule if you know that there can be several whitespaces ahead, for example in the beginning of indented lines. This rule will skip all whitespace at once, instead of testing multiple rules and skipping one at a time due to no match.

DetectIdentifier

Detect identifier strings (as a regular expression: [a-zA-Z_][a-zA-Z0-9_]*).

<DetectIdentifier (common attributes) />

This rule has no specific attributes.

Use this rule to skip a string of word characters at once, rather than testing with multiple rules and skipping one at a time due to no match.