How to utilize vim's syntax color to replace the `highlight' utility?

Question

I feel that the `highlight' utility doesn't support as many file types as vim does, and the project isn't very active. When the file is gzipped, highlight doesn't recognize it at all.

But in despite of `highlight', as an alternative choice, can I have the colorized vim text output to the console?

Answer 1

If you insist on using vim for this you can disable clearing of the screen on exit with :set t_ti= t_te=.

To make this behave a little more light highlight you can automatically exit vim. This will however only show you one screen of higlighted source. Additionally you would need to :redraw the screen to actually see something.

Also use the view alias of vim to open the file read-only.

$ view --cmd "set t_ti= t_te=" "+redraw" "+q" YOUR_FILE

A way more natural solution would pygmentize from the pygments python package.

Answer 2

vim can act as a replacement for less, while adding features such as vim's syntax highlighting, by running /usr/share/vim/vimcurrent/macros/less.sh.

I haven't used highlight, so I'm not sure if this is what you're looking for or not.