cbedgar has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

A magnificant feature of BBEdit is syntax coloring and syntax checking of various languages. BBEdit makes perl programming easier, because keywords are highlighted and comments are indicated with color. The programmer immediately catches mistakes quickly, because unclosed quotes and regular expressions are obvious.

I want to use Perl version 5.10.0. It has a number of seemingly small but very useful improvements, such as defined or, say, switch, static variables, and regex optimizations. Once you have used it for a while, the old Perl5.8 way seems so clunky.

But, here's the rub. BBEdit does not seem to handle the new Perl5.10 syntax. So, do I give up syntax coloring and checking in BBEdit, or do I give up Perl5.10? What a choice! :-( I don't want to give up either.

  • Comment on Perl5.10 and BBEdit: Syntax Coloring and Syntax Checking, How?

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Re: Perl5.10 and BBEdit: Syntax Coloring and Syntax Checking, How?
by mjg (Scribe) on Nov 09, 2009 at 03:40 UTC

    ikegami is on the right track above. Open up the BBEdit application bundle (right-click the icon in Finder and select "Show Package Contents") then navigate to Contents/Resources. You'll find a file called "Perl Keywords.txt" there. Make a backup of it if you like, then open it up and add keywords you'd like highlighted. I added the following for Perl 5.10.1:

    say UNITCHECK state given when default

    Not sure where operators like // are, but this should help.

Re: Perl5.10 and BBEdit: Syntax Coloring and Syntax Checking, How?
by parv (Parson) on Oct 24, 2008 at 07:58 UTC

    Never mind my post below for OP had already addressed the points that I wrote.

Re: Perl5.10 and BBEdit: Syntax Coloring and Syntax Checking, How?
by ikegami (Patriarch) on Oct 24, 2008 at 08:40 UTC

    I'm assuming you've already checked for updates.

    Supporting the new keywords might be as simple as adding a few words to some text file. Did you check your BBEdit directory for a keyword dictionary? Such is the case for UltraEdit. (Make a backup before doing any changes, of course!)

Re: Perl5.10 and BBEdit: Syntax Coloring and Syntax Checking, How?
by Anonymous Monk on Oct 24, 2008 at 07:48 UTC
    Any advice?
    Be direct :) contact BBEdit support.