Snippets

Compatibility with Textmate

Sublime Text snippets are generally compatible with Textmate snippets.

File Format

Snippet files are XML files with the sublime-snippet extension.

<snippet>
    <content><![CDATA[]]></content>
    <tabTrigger></tabTrigger>
    <scope></scope>
    <description></description>
</snippet>

content

Actual snippet content.

tabTrigger

Implicit keybinding for this snippet. Last key (implicit) is TAB.

scope

Scope selector to activate this snippet.

description

User friendly description for menu item.

Escape Sequences

\$

Literal $.

Environment Variables

$PARAM1 .. $PARAMn	Arguments passed to the insertSnippet command.
$SELECTION	The text that was selected when the snippet was triggered.
$TM_CURRENT_LINE	Content of the line the cursor was in when the snippet was triggered.
$TM_CURRENT_WORD	Current word under the cursor when the snippet was triggered.
$TM_FILENAME	File name of the file being edited including extension.
$TM_FILEPATH	File path to the file being edited.
$TM_FULLNAME	User’s user name.
$TM_LINE_INDEX	Column the snippet is being inserted at, 0 based.
$TM_LINE_NUMBER	Row the snippet is being inserted at, 1 based.
$TM_SELECTED_TEXT	An alias for $SELECTION.
$TM_SOFT_TABS	YES if translateTabsToSpaces is true, otherwise NO.
$TM_TAB_SIZE	Spaces per-tab (controlled by the tabSize option).

Fields

Mark positions to cycle through by pressing TAB or SHIFT + TAB.

Syntax: $1 .. $n

$0

Exit mark. Position at which normal text editing should be resumed. By default, Sublime Text implicitly sets this mark at the end of the snippet’s content element.

Fields with the same name mirror each other.

Place Holders

Fields with a default value.

Syntax: ${1:PLACE_HOLDER} .. ${n:PLACE_HOLDER}

Fields and place holders can be combined and nested within other place holders.

Substitutions

Syntax:

• ${var_name/regex/format_string/}
• ${var_name/regex/format_string/options}

var_name

The field’s name to base the substitution on: 1, 2, 3…

regex

Perl-style regular expression: See the Boost library documentation for regular expressions.

format_string

See the Boost library documentation for format strings.

options

Optional. Any of the following:

i

Case-insensitive regex.

g

Replace all occurrences of regex.

m

Don’t ignore newlines in the string.