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I'm using emacs for perl scripting and for some unknown reason the syntax highlighting is inactivated when opening new or existing scripts.

I'm wondering if I press a key unknowingly that disactivates it.

Currently my only option is to close emacs and start a new session.

Is there a way to reactivate it?

Not sure which mode is providing the highlighting.

Thanks

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  • Use C-h v major-mode to find out what major mode handles your perl sources.
    – choroba
    Jun 17, 2015 at 8:11
  • @choroba thanks. This works in a non perl buffer. In a perl buffer however it seems to provide help for the syntax at the cursor position. But found it through describe-variable and results in cperl-mode
    – yahan
    Jun 17, 2015 at 8:49

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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You can always turn syntax highlighting back on using M-x font-lock-mode. Using the same command a second time will turn it back off. If you've got it bound to a key that you've inadvertently pressed, use Ctrl+h w font-lock-mode to find which key it's bound to.

If you want to set font-lock-mode permanently for cperl, you can do so by setting either cperl-font-lock or cperl-hairy to t. The former sets only syntax highlighting; the latter also sets some other values - check the info for the variable for more information.

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  • thanks! turning this mode off and on works. I don't have a binding for font-lock-mode though, so probably something else is happening. But at least I should be able to enable it again.
    – yahan
    Jun 17, 2015 at 10:54
  • I've occasionally had syntax highlighting fail when I've been working with very large scripts. In most cases turning it off and on again has worked. Maybe it's the same issue.
    – Jenny D
    Jun 17, 2015 at 12:09
  • ai, it happened again and unfortunately toggling M-x font-lock-mode did not work...
    – yahan
    Jun 17, 2015 at 14:20
  • Turn debug-on-error on and try it again. The issue here isn't that font-lock-mode isn't on - it's that it fails with this particular file. Debugging will help you figure out why.
    – Jenny D
    Jun 17, 2015 at 18:05
  • Second though: What happens if you run M-x font-lock-fontify-buffer? Preferably with debug-on-error on.
    – Jenny D
    Jun 18, 2015 at 10:18

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