Syntax Highlighting

There are several components of a query that are highlighted in different colors. The colors can be configured using dot commands. Syntax highlighting can also be disabled entirely using the .highlight off command.

Below is a list of components that can be configured.

Type	Command	Default Color
Keywords	.keyword	green
Constants ad literals	.constant	yellow
Comments	.comment	brightblack
Errors	.error	red
Continuation	.cont	brightblack
Continuation (Selected)	.cont_sel	green

The components can be configured using either a supported color name (e.g., .keyword red), or by directly providing a terminal code to use for rendering (e.g., .keywordcode \033[31m). Below is a list of supported color names and their corresponding terminal codes.

Color	Terminal Code
red	`\033[31m`
green	`\033[32m`
yellow	`\033[33m`
blue	`\033[34m`
magenta	`\033[35m`
cyan	`\033[36m`
white	`\033[37m`
brightblack	`\033[90m`
brightred	`\033[91m`
brightgreen	`\033[92m`
brightyellow	`\033[93m`
brightblue	`\033[94m`
brightmagenta	`\033[95m`
brightcyan	`\033[96m`
brightwhite	`\033[97m`

For example, here is an alternative set of syntax highlighting colors:

.keyword brightred
.constant brightwhite
.comment cyan
.error yellow
.cont blue
.cont_sel brightblue

If you wish to start up the CLI with a different set of colors every time, you can place these commands in the ~/.duckdbrc file that is loaded on start-up of the CLI.

Error Highlighting

The shell has support for highlighting certain errors. In particular, mismatched brackets and unclosed quotes are highlighted in red (or another color if specified). This highlighting is automatically disabled for large queries. In addition, it can be disabled manually using the .render_errors off command.

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Last modified: 2024-04-25

Error Highlighting

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