Turning on syntax highlighting in emacs

[GammaPoint]

Hi, I'm trying to turn on syntax highlighting in emacs for python. I saw some directions online that referred to editing my .emacs file, but I don't actually have this file, I have a .emacs.d directory (and in that directory there is no file .emacs). Could someone walk me through the steps to turn on syntax highlighting to aid my python programming?

[stevea]

You *can* create a ~/.emacs customization file, but you don't need to enable syntax hightlighting.

If you edit a python file with the ".py" suffix it will automagically be in "pthyon-mode".
To force a buffer to python-mode type "M-x python-mode" "M-x" means meta-x in emacs lingo, (typically <esc>x). When you type M-x you'll see the minibuffer at the bottom line and just type oin i "python-mode<enter>".

If you use the command:
emacs /usr/share/glipper/plugins/grow.py
it's automaticall in python mode.

If you using emacs and you edit a python file, like:
^X^F/usr/share/glipper/plugins/grow.py
it will automatically load in python mode.

So it's already enabled. No need for the .emacs file in this case.

[juanfgs]

well, I'm currently using emacs 23 (just compiled from CVS), and Python syntax highlighting is activated by default. I'm pretty sure that in emacs 22 it's the same.
Try the following:
open a python file, and see if the global mode changes to (Python) and then do "M-x font-lock-mode"
If it doesn't, you might want to search for a python-mode.

Also you have to actually create the .emacs files and insert elisp code there , probably you want to enable font-lock mode for Python files automatically so you should put something like this in your .emacs file:

(add-hook 'python-mode-common-hook
(font-lock-mode))

[stevea]

btw - here is a .emacs I sometimes use

$ cat ~/.emacs
;; Linus' kernel formatting
(defun linux-c-mode ()
"C mode with adjusted defaults for use with the Linux kernel."
(interactive)
(c-mode)
(c-set-style "K&R")
(setq tab-width 8)
(setq indent-tabs-mode t)
(setq c-basic-offset 8))

;;; uncomment this line to disable loading of "default.el" at startup
;; (setq inhibit-default-init t)

;; turn on font-lock mode
(when (fboundp 'global-font-lock-mode)
(global-font-lock-mode t))

;; enable visual feedback on selections
(setq transient-mark-mode t)

;; default to better frame titles
(setq frame-title-format
(concat "%b - emacs@" system-name))

;; default to unified diffs
(setq diff-switches "-u")

;; always end a file with a newline
(setq require-final-newline 'query)

(setq c-default-style "k&r")
(setq c-basic-offset 4)

[juanfgs]

wow! there are some things that look pretty neat, I think I'll try them , thanks for sharing!