WebStorm 2019.3 Help

Language injections

Language injections let you work with pieces of code in a programming language different from the main language of your file.

WebStorm provides comprehensive language assistance for editing HTML, CSS, XML, JSON, RegExp, and other code fragments inside string and template literals as well as inside tags and attributes in XML-like languages.

Before you start

Make sure the IntelliLang bundled plugin is enabled. If the plugin is disabled, activate it as described in Managing plugins.

Temporarily inject a language

  1. Position the caret inside the string or template literal, tag, or attribute, in which you want to inject a language and press Alt+Enter (or use the intention action icon Intention action icon).

  2. Select Inject language or reference and choose the language you want to inject.

Open a code fragment in the dedicated editor section

  1. Position the caret within the injected code piece and press Alt+Enter (or use the intention action icon Intention action icon).

  2. Select Edit <language ID> Fragment.

    WebStorm will open a dedicated editor section for editing the code with the injected language. This editor provides full code assistance, including code completion, inspections, intentions and code style actions.

Use language injection comments

  • When you inject a language, WebStorm suggests adding an annotation. Press Alt+Enter to accept the suggestion.

  • You can also add a blank line before the target string literal, and type the following comment:

    language=<language_ID>

    For comments, use the syntax of the language you want to inject. Language IDs are generally intuitive, for example, SQL, RegExp, XML, HTML.

A language fragment may be combined with a prefix and a suffix that act together as a wrapper, turning the fragment into a syntactically complete language unit. When editing your code, you can see prefixes and suffixes only in the fragment editor. They are not shown in the main editor.

The prefix and the suffix can be included in the injection comment as follows:

// language=<language_ID> prefix=<prefix> suffix=<suffix>

Cancel injections

  • Position the caret at the code fragment, press Alt+Enter, and select Uninject language or reference from the list.

    Cancel language injection
  • Alternatively, just delete the injection comment.

Configure injection rules

You can configure language injection rules on the Editor | Language Injections page of WebStorm settings Ctrl+Alt+S.

Language injection settings

All pre-defined injection rules are configured for the Built-in scope. In other words, they are global (and therefore available in all WebStorm projects). Custom rules can be configured for the IDE or for one project only. To change the scope of custom injections, use the the Move to Project/IDE scope button.

To configure custom injection rules, click the Add button to add a new rule, or copy a predefined rule and change its settings.

Last modified: 4 April 2020