Prism Line Number Plugin

By  on  

The Mozilla Developer Network (MDN) is in the midst of a remodel (sorry for the spoiler) and we've been implementing features incrementally.  One larger front-end change we'll be implementing is using the PrismJS for document code syntax highlighting.  One requirement of MDN's syntax highlighter is that line numbers are displayed, a functionality not provided by Prism.  Prism does provide a line-highlighting plugin but not a line-numbering plugin, so I used that plugin as my base and simply simplified it to provide numbers for a lines.

The CSS

The CSS here is copied from the line-highlighting plugin.  I've changed the attribute to data-number, which we'll use instead of data-line, and I've changed the colors used for the line background:

pre[data-number] {
	position: relative;
	padding: 1em 0 1em 3em;
}

.line-number {
	position: absolute;
	left: 0;
	right: 0;
	padding: inherit 0;
	margin-top: 1em; /* Same as .prism's padding-top */

	background: transparent;
	
	pointer-events: none;
	
	line-height: inherit;
	white-space: pre;
}

	.line-number:before,
	.line-number[data-end]:after {
		content: attr(data-start);
		position: absolute;
		top: .4em;
		left: .6em;
		min-width: 1em;
		padding: 0 .5em;
		color: #999;
		font: bold 65%/1.5 sans-serif;
		text-align: center;
		vertical-align: .3em;
		border-radius: 999px;
		text-shadow: none;
		border: 0;
	}
	
	.line-number[data-end]:after {
		content: attr(data-end);
		top: auto;
		bottom: .4em;
	}

Of course you can style the line number element to however you'd like, but this CSS keeps styles fairly consistent with the line-highlighting plugin.

The JavaScript

Here's the JavaScript portion for the plugin in all its glory:

/*
	This plugins was created based on the Prism line-numbering plugin.
	This plugin aims to number all lines and is independent of highlighting.
*/
(function(){

if(!window.Prism || !document.querySelectorAll) {
	return;
}

function $$(expr, con) {
	return Array.prototype.slice.call((con || document).querySelectorAll(expr));
}
    
function numberLines(pre) {
	var offset = +pre.getAttribute('data-line-offset') || 0;
	var lineHeight = parseFloat(getComputedStyle(pre).lineHeight);
	var code = pre.querySelector('code');
	var numLines = code.innerHTML.split('\n').length;
	pre.setAttribute('data-number', '');

	for (var i=1; i <= numLines; i++) {
		var line = document.createElement('div');
		line.className = 'line-number';
		line.setAttribute('data-start', i);
		line.style.top = (i - offset - 1) * lineHeight + 'px';
		
		(code || pre).appendChild(line);
	}
}

Prism.hooks.add('after-highlight', function(env) {
	var pre = env.element.parentNode;
	
	if (!pre || !/pre/i.test(pre.nodeName)) {
		return;
	}

	$$('.line-number', pre).forEach(function (line) {
		line.parentNode.removeChild(line);
	});
	
	numberLines(pre);
});

})();

This code is also based on the syntax-highlighting plugin's code, but much more simplified because there's less line-numbering logic.

If there's enough interest in what I have, I can make a GitHub repo for the plugin.  I haven't to this point because I believe this plugin could/should be merged with the line-highlighting plugin, since in many cases, developers reference line numbers.  In any event, this plugin may be what you're looking for.  Let me know if you have updates or ideas!

Recent Features

  • By
    6 Things You Didn&#8217;t Know About Firefox OS

    Firefox OS is all over the tech news and for good reason:  Mozilla's finally given web developers the platform that they need to create apps the way they've been creating them for years -- with CSS, HTML, and JavaScript.  Firefox OS has been rapidly improving...

  • By
    An Interview with Eric Meyer

    Your early CSS books were instrumental in pushing my love for front end technologies. What was it about CSS that you fell in love with and drove you to write about it? At first blush, it was the simplicity of it as compared to the table-and-spacer...

Incredible Demos

  • By
    JavaScript Speech Recognition

    Speech recognition software is becoming more and more important; it started (for me) with Siri on iOS, then Amazon's Echo, then my new Apple TV, and so on.  Speech recognition is so useful for not just us tech superstars but for people who either want to work "hands...

  • By
    Add Site Screenshots for External Links Using MooTools Tooltips

    Before you send your user to an unknown external website, why not provide them a screenshot of the site via a tooltip so they may preview the upcoming page? Here's how you can do just that using MooTools. The MooTools JavaScript The first step is to grab...

Discussion

  1. Jonas

    This fails in WebKit, as getComputedStyle(pre).lineHeight returns ‘normal’.
    See also: https://github.com/LeaVerou/dabblet/pull/175

    • Ahh yes Jonas; I encountered that issue and explicitly set a line-height within a different stylesheet so as to avoid this issue.

  2. Maybe you missed it, but PrismJS does have a line numbering plugin. More info can be found on http://prismjs.com/plugins/line-numbers/

    • Hmm, that may be new. Thanks Mark!

    • So I just took a look at this and the line-numbers plugin isn’t compatible with the line-highlight plugin; mine is.

Wrap your code in <pre class="{language}"></pre> tags, link to a GitHub gist, JSFiddle fiddle, or CodePen pen to embed!