Code Blocks

Breathe supports rendering code blocks with syntax highlighting provided by the Pygments library. By default, Breathe will assume that code blocks match the language of the source file, but you can also specify the language of the code blocks using Doxygen’s code command or MarkDown’s fenced code blocks.

Note

Any hyperlinked text found within the code blocks rendered with Doxygen’s HTML output will not be hyperlinked in any Sphinx output due to the use of the Pygments library. As a benefit, a code-block’s syntax highlighting can be any syntax supported by Pygments (which is much more than only the languages supported by Doxygen’s parsers).

The Doxygen syntax for code blocks supports specifying the language as follows:

\code{.py}
class Python:
   pass
\endcode

@code{.cpp}
class Cpp {};
@endcode

This technique can also be utilized from MarkDown syntax/files

```py
class Python:
   pass
```

```cpp
class Cpp {};
```

Breathe will pass the language specified to Pygments to get accurate highlighting. If no language is explicitly provided (either from \code command or via Doxygen’s XML output about the language documented), then Pygments will try to guess what syntax the code block is using (based on the code block’s contents).

Examples

The following should render with standard C/C++ highlighting. Notice, the syntax is automatically highlighted as C++ because the documented function exists in a C++ source file.

---

/** A function with an unannotated code block with C/C++ code.
 *
 * @code
 * char *buffer = new char[42];
 * int charsAdded = sprintf(buffer, "Tabs are normally %d spaces\n", 8);
 * @endcode
 */
void with_standard_code_block();

---

void with_standard_code_block()

A function with an unannotated code block with C/C++ code.

char* buffer = new char[42];
int charsAdded = sprintf(buffer, "Tabs are normally %d spaces\n", 8);

---

The following should render with no detected highlighting. Notice, there is no syntax highlighting because Pygments does not recognize the code block’s contained syntax as a C++ snippet.

---

/** A function with an unannotated code block with non-C/C++ code.
 *
 * @code
 * set(user_list A B C)
 * foreach(element ${user_list})
 *     message(STATUS "Element is ${element}")
 * endforeach()
 * @endcode
 */
void with_unannotated_cmake_code_block();

---

void with_unannotated_cmake_code_block()

A function with an unannotated code block with non-C/C++ code.

set(user_list A B C)
foreach(element ${user_list})
    message(STATUS "Element is ${element}")
endforeach()

---

The following should render with specified CMake highlighting. Here, the syntax highlighting is explicitly recognized as a CMake script snippet which overrides the inherent C++ context.

---

/** A function with an annotated cmake code block.
 *
 * @code{.cmake}
 * set(user_list A B C)
 * foreach(element ${user_list})
 *     message(STATUS "Element is ${element}")
 * endforeach()
 * @endcode
 */
void with_annotated_cmake_code_block();

---

void with_annotated_cmake_code_block()

A function with an annotated cmake code block.

set(user_list A B C)
foreach(element ${user_list})
    message(STATUS "Element is ${element}")
endforeach()

Warning

Pygments will raise a warning in the Sphinx build logs if the specified syntax does conform the specified syntax’s convention(s).