Highlighting fragments of the source

Warning - java2web is now obsolete. Please use its successor: code2web

Sometimes you might want to highlight a specific area of the source code like this:

0166    // We have several possibilites. See which one we have imported
0167    for (String qualifiedClassName : possibilities) {
0168      int dot = qualifiedClassName.lastIndexOf(".");
0169      String packageName = qualifiedClassName.substring(0,dot);

0170      for (String imp : imports) {
0171        if (imp.equals(packageName)) return qualifiedClassName;
0172      }
0173    }
0174    
0175    // We have several possibilities, but none of them was explicitly imported. In such case
0176    // test if one of the possibilities is java.lang - which does not need an explicit import

0177    for (String qualifiedClassName : possibilities) {
0178      if (qualifiedClassName.equals("java.lang."+className))
0179        return "java.lang."+className;
0180    }

You can do this using the following methods

HTMLConverter

void highlight( int startLine, int endLine )
void clearHighlights()
void highlight( String zones )

The last method takes a sequence of comma-separated ranges using the syntax: "start line..end line, start line .. end line, ...". For example:

conv.highlight("2..5,88,109..125");

will highlight lines from 2 through 5 inclusive, line 88 and lines 109 through 125 inclusive.

Java2Web

If you are using Java2Web, you define the zones to highlight using the --highlight option and the compact syntax described above:

java2web ... --highlight="2..5,88,109..125" ...

JSP Tag

If you are using the JSP tag, you use the highlight attribute with the same syntax.

<j2w:convert ... highlight="2..5,88,109..125" ... >

Style

As always, you can configure the style applied to the highlighted region. This is controlled by the highlightStyle property, with a default value of "highlight"

HTMLConverter		String getHighlightStyle() void setHighlightStyle( String style )
Java2Web		java2web ... --highlightStyle = xxxxx ...
<j2w:convert>		<j2w:convert ... highlightStyle="style" ... >