---
name: "HTML::Highlight"
section: "3pm"
platform: "linux"
package: "perl-html-highlight"
version: "0.20-18"
release: "Arch Linux 2026-11-01"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/HTML::Highlight"
---

# HTML::Highlight(3pm)

A module to highlight words or patterns in HTML documents

## NAME

HTML::Highlight - A module to highlight words or patterns in HTML documents

## SYNOPSIS

```
        use HTML::Highlight;
        # create the highlighter object

        my $hl = new HTML::Highlight (
                words => [
                        'word',
                        'any',
                        'car',
                        'some phrase'
                ],
                wildcards => [
                        undef,
                        '%',
                        '*',
                        undef
                ],
                colors => [
                        '#FF0000',
                        'red',
                        'green',
                        'rgb(255, 0, 0)'
                ],
                czech_language => 0,
                debug => 0
        );
        # Remember that you don't need to specify your own colors.
        # The default colors should be optimal.
        # Now you can use the object to highlight patterns in a document
        # by passing content of the document to its highlight() method.
        # The highlighter object "remembers" its configuration.
        my $highlighted_document = $hl->highlight($document);
```

## MOTIVATION

This module was originaly created to work together with fulltext indexing module DBIx::TextIndex to highlight search results.

A need for a highlighter that takes wildcard matches and HTML tags into account and supports czech language (or other Slavic languages) was the motivation to create this module.

## DESCRIPTION

This module provides Google-like highlighting of words or patterns in HTML documents. This feature is typically used to highlight search results.

- The construcutor:

  ```
          my $hl = new HTML::Highlight (
                  words => [],
                  wildcards => [],
                  colors => [],
                  czech_language => 0,
                  debug => 0
          );
  ```

  This is a constructor of the highlighter object. It takes an array of  even number of parameters.

  The **words** parameter is a reference to an array of words to highlight.

  The **wildcards** parameter is a reference to an array of wildcards, that are applied to corresponding words in the **words** array.

  A wildcard can be either undef or one of '%' or '\*'.

  **The "%" character** means "match any characters":

  ```
          "%" applied to 'car' ==> matches "car", "cars", "careful", ...
  ```

  **The "\*" character** means "match also plural form of the word":

  ```
          "*" applied to 'car' ==> matches only "car" or "cars"
  ```

  **An undefined wildcard** means "match exactly the corresponding word":

  ```
          undefined wildcard applied to 'car' ==> matches only "car"
  ```

  The **colors** parameter is a reference to an array of CSS color identificators, that are used to highlight the corresponding words in the **words** array.

  Default Google-like colors are used if you don't specify your own colors. Number of colors can be lower than number of words - in this case the colors are rotated and some of the words are therefore highlighted using the same color.

  The highlighter takes HTML tags into account and therefore does not "highlight" a word or a pattern inside a tag.

  A support for diacritics insenstive matching for ISO-8859-2 languages (for for example the czech language) can be activated using the **czech\_language** option. This feature requires a module **CzFast** that is available on CPAN in a directory of author TRIPIE or at http://geocities.com/tripiecz/.

  **Your system's locales must be set correctly to use the** **czech\_language feature.**

- highlight

  ```
          my $hl_document = $hl->highlight($document);
  ```

  The only parameter is a document in that you want to highlight the words that were passed to the constructor of the highlighter object. The method returns a version of the document in which the words are highlighted.

- preview\_context

  ```
          my $sections = $hl->preview_context($document, $num);
  ```

  This method takes two parameters. The first one is the document you want to scan for the words that were passed to the constructor of the highlighter object. The second parameter is an optional integer that specifies maximum number of characters in each of the context sections (see below). This parameter defaults to 80 characters if it's not specified. Minimum allowed value of this  parameter is 60.

  The method returns a reference to an array of sections of the document in which the words that were passed to the constructor appear.  HTML tags are removed before the document is proccessed and are  not present in the ouput.  This feature is typically used in search engines to preview a context  in which words from a search query appear in the resulting documents. The words are always in the middle of each of the sections. The number of sections this method returns is equal to the number of words passed to the constructor of the highlighter object.  That means only the first occurence of each of the words is taken into account.

## SUPPORT

No official support is provided, but I welcome any comments, patches and suggestions on my email.

## BUGS

I am aware of no bugs.

## AVAILABILITY

```
        http://geocities.com/tripiecz/
```

## AUTHOR

**Tomas Styblo**, tripie@cpan.org, CPAN-ID TRIPIE

Prague, the Czech republic

## LICENSE

HTML::Highlight  - A module to highlight words or patterns in HTML documents

Copyright (C) 2000 Tomas Styblo (tripie@cpan.org)

This module is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of either:

a) the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 1, or (at your option) any later version, or

b) the "Artistic License" which comes with this module.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See either the GNU General Public License or the Artistic License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the Artistic License with this module, in the file Artistic.  If not, I'll be glad to provide one.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA

## SEE ALSO

[**perl**(1)](/perl/1.md).

## POD ERRORS

Hey! **The above document had some coding errors, which are explained below:**

- Around line 251:

  '=item' outside of any '=over'

- Around line 344:

  You forgot a '=back' before '=head1'