Null Formatter

Raw, unformatted text output

1 min read 170 words

The Null Formatter yields raw, unformatted text.

Usage

Use the"null"or"none"alias:

from rosettes import highlight

code = "def hello(): pass"
raw = highlight(code, "python", formatter="null")

print(raw == code)  # True

Why use a Null Formatter?

While it may seem counter-intuitive for a syntax highlighter, the Null Formatter is useful for:

  1. Benchmarking: Measure the performance of lexers alone, excluding the overhead of HTML or ANSI formatting.
  2. Analysis: Process code through the tokenization pipeline without generating a styled output.
  3. Fallback: Provide a safe fallback when no highlighting is desired but you still want to use thehighlight()API.
  4. Integration Testing: Verify that the tokenization process doesn't lose or alter any characters from the source code.

Performance

The Null Formatter uses the Fast Path exclusively, simply joining token values together. It is the fastest possible "formatting" path in Rosettes.

Next Steps