cardinal

What is cardinal?

The cardinal npm package is a syntax highlighter for JavaScript code. It can be used to display JavaScript code with syntax highlighting in terminal applications. It uses the redeyed package to handle the actual syntax highlighting.

What are cardinal's main functionalities?

Syntax highlighting for JavaScript code

This feature allows you to pass JavaScript code as a string to the `highlight` function, which returns the code with terminal-compatible syntax highlighting.

const cardinal = require('cardinal');
const highlightedCode = cardinal.highlight('const x = 123;');
console.log(highlightedCode);

Syntax highlighting from a file

This feature allows you to read JavaScript code from a file and then use the `highlight` function to display it with syntax highlighting in the terminal.

const cardinal = require('cardinal');
const fs = require('fs');

fs.readFile('example.js', 'utf8', function(err, code) {
  if (err) throw err;
  const highlightedCode = cardinal.highlight(code);
  console.log(highlightedCode);
});

Custom theme support

Cardinal allows you to specify a custom theme for syntax highlighting by passing a theme object as an option to the `highlight` function.

const cardinal = require('cardinal');
const customTheme = require('./myCustomTheme.json');
const highlightedCode = cardinal.highlight('const x = 123;', { theme: customTheme });
console.log(highlightedCode);

Other packages similar to cardinal

chalk

Chalk is a popular npm package for styling terminal strings. Unlike cardinal, which is focused on syntax highlighting, chalk provides a more general approach to styling strings with colors, background colors, and text styles. It does not parse code for syntax highlighting.

highlight.js

Highlight.js is a syntax highlighter for the web, but it can also be used in Node.js environments. It supports a wide range of languages and has many themes available. It is more versatile than cardinal as it is not limited to JavaScript and can be used in both browser and server contexts.

prismjs

Prism is another syntax highlighting library that works both in the browser and on the server. It is similar to highlight.js in terms of functionality and also supports a wide range of programming languages and comes with a variety of themes.

README

cardinal

Syntax highlights your code with ANSI colors to be printed to the terminal.