react-syntax-highlighter/react-syntax-highlighter

react-syntax-highlighter is a React component that renders source code with language-specific syntax coloring. It wraps the Prism and Highlight.js syntax highlighting libraries, tokenizing source code using their language grammars and mapping each token to a styled React element. The component operates in two styling modes: inline style objects applied directly to each token, or CSS class names that can be themed via external stylesheets. This dual-mode approach makes the highlighter portable across environments where CSS class injection may or may not be available.

The component is built around a pluggable architecture where interchangeable highlighter engines feed a tokenization pipeline, and the resulting tokens are wrapped in nested React elements to preserve line and token structure. Developers can apply custom color themes and select from dozens of language grammars, enabling consistent branding or accessibility requirements in React-based documentation, blogs, and tutorials. The rendering is entirely virtual DOM-based, converting parsed tokens into styled elements without requiring external DOM manipulation or dependencies beyond the core highlighter libraries.

The project covers the full workflow of syntax highlighting in React: parsing source code, tokenization, and styled rendering, all exposed through a straightforward component API. Documentation and installation instructions are available in the repository, guiding users through adding the package and using either the default themes or custom ones.