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show-syntax

A PowerShell cat-with-syntax-highlighting module inspired by bat — displays file contents with ANSI colour-coded highlighting, optional line numbers, and pipeline support.

⬇️ 0 Downloads

🏷️ v1.0.0 Version

📜 MIT License

Install: Install-Module -Name show-syntax

⬇️ PowerShell Gallery View on GitHub

Documentation

Overview

show-syntax is a PowerShell module inspired by the popular Rust CLI tool bat — a cat clone with ANSI syntax highlighting. It reads files and outputs their contents to the console with colour-coded highlighting based on file extension, plus optional line numbers and full pipeline support.

Whether you’re reviewing a config file, scanning a script, or paging through log output, show-syntax makes the terminal a much more readable place.

Installation

Install from the PowerShell Gallery:

# Install for current user
Install-Module -Name show-syntax -Scope CurrentUser

# Import
Import-Module show-syntax

Requirements: PowerShell 5.1 or later (Windows PowerShell 5.1 and PowerShell 7+).

Quick Start

# Display a PowerShell script with syntax highlighting
Show-Syntax -Path .\Deploy.ps1

# Display a JSON file with line numbers
Show-Syntax -Path .\appsettings.json -ShowLineNumbers

# Pipe multiple files from Get-ChildItem
Get-ChildItem -Path .\src -Filter *.ps1 -Recurse | Show-Syntax -ShowLineNumbers

Features

🎨 ANSI syntax highlighting for PowerShell, JSON, XML, Markdown, Python, JavaScript/TypeScript, YAML, Shell scripts, CSS, HTML, CSV, and log files
🔢 Optional line numbers with -ShowLineNumbers
🔧 Language override with -Language when auto-detection isn’t enough
📥 Pipeline support — pipe paths or FileInfo objects directly
🛡️ Graceful error handling for missing or invalid paths
⚡ Efficient streaming — reads files line-by-line via StreamReader to handle large files without loading everything into memory

Commands

`Show-Syntax`

Displays the contents of one or more files with ANSI syntax highlighting.

Parameter	Type	Required	Description
`-Path`	`string[]`	✅	One or more file paths. Accepts pipeline input by value or by property name (`FullName`, `FilePath`).
`-ShowLineNumbers`	`switch`	❌	Prepends each output line with its 1-based line number.
`-Language`	`string`	❌	Overrides auto-detection. See supported language keys below.

Supported Language Keys

Key(s)	File types
`ps1`, `powershell`	PowerShell (`.ps1`, `.psm1`, `.psd1`)
`json`	JSON
`xml`	XML
`md`, `markdown`	Markdown
`py`, `python`	Python
`js`, `javascript`, `ts`, `typescript`	JavaScript / TypeScript
`yaml`	YAML
`sh`, `bash`	Shell / Bash
`css`	CSS / SCSS / Less
`html`	HTML
`csv`	CSV
`log`	Log files
`txt`	Plain text (no highlighting)

Examples

Display a PowerShell script

Show-Syntax -Path .\Deploy.ps1

Automatically detects the .ps1 extension and applies PowerShell highlighting — keywords, variables, strings, comments, and cmdlet names are all coloured.

Display a JSON file with line numbers

Show-Syntax -Path .\appsettings.json -ShowLineNumbers

Displays the file with JSON highlighting (keys, values, booleans, numbers) and prepends each line with its line number.

Pipe multiple files recursively

Get-ChildItem -Path .\src -Filter *.ps1 -Recurse | Show-Syntax -ShowLineNumbers

Pipes all .ps1 files found recursively under .\src into Show-Syntax, displaying each with a header banner, PowerShell highlighting, and line numbers.

Override language detection

Show-Syntax -Path .\Dockerfile -Language sh

Forces Shell/Bash highlighting on a file whose extension is unknown to the auto-detector.

Pipe a single path string

'.\README.md' | Show-Syntax

Passes a file path string through the pipeline and displays it with Markdown highlighting.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! See the GitHub repository for details.

License

show-syntax is released under the MIT License.