# protocols

URL: /patitas/api/protocols/
Section: api
Description: Protocols for Patitas.

Defines the contracts for sub-lexers and delegates.
Used for zero-copy handoff (ZCLH) to external highlighters.

---

> For a complete page index, fetch /patitas/llms.txt.

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(/patitas/api/protocols/index.txt)

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Module

#
`protocols`

Protocols for Patitas.

Defines the contracts for sub-lexers and delegates.
Used for zero-copy handoff (ZCLH) to external highlighters.

1Class

## Classes

`LexerDelegate`

2

▼

Protocol for sub-lexers that process source ranges.

Thread Safety:
Implementations must be sta…

Bases:

`Protocol`

Protocol for sub-lexers that process source ranges.

Thread Safety:

```
Implementations must be stateless or use only local variables.
The source string is read-only shared state.
```

#### Methods

`tokenize_range`

4

`Iterator[Any]`

▼

Tokenize a specific range of the source string.

`def tokenize_range(self, source: str, start: int, end: int, language: str) -> Iterator[Any]`

##### Parameters

Name
Type
Description

`source`
`—`

The complete source buffer (read-only)

`start`
`—`

Start index (inclusive)

`end`
`—`

End index (exclusive)

`language`
`—`

Language identifier for lexer selection

##### Returns

`Iterator[Any]`

`supports_language`

1

`bool`

▼

Check if this delegate can handle the given language.

`def supports_language(self, language: str) -> bool`

##### Parameters

Name
Type
Description

`language`
`—`

##### Returns

`bool`