The editor can add things like indentation and closing parenthesis to your code automatically. Since the code editor knows the syntax of the programming language you’re using, it can also help with code formatting. This makes the code much easier to read: Image: Screenshot by the author.

Notice that, for example, the comment is colored in gray, the function name in turquoise, function arguments in orange and strings in green. Here is the code for a Python function that checks whether a number is positive, negative or zero without syntax highlighting: Image: Screenshot by the author.Īnd here is the same function with syntax highlighting. The code editor knows the syntax of the language that you are using and can therefore clarify the language syntax. Syntax highlighting is a feature that helps the programmer by giving visual cues such as color coding. A good code editor will at least include syntax highlighting and code formatting. They’re a lot like a generic text editor, but with a couple of added features that help tremendously with writing code.

Code editors are lightweight tools for, you guessed it, writing and editing code.

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