Language Identifiers

In Visual Studio Code, each language mode has a unique specific language identifier. That identifier is rarely seen by the user except in the settings, for example, when associating file extensions to a language:

    "files.associations": {
        "*.myphp": "php"
    }

Note that casing matters for exact identifier matching ('Markdown' != 'markdown')

The language identifier becomes essential for VS Code extension developers when adding new language capabilities or when replacing a language support.

Every language defines its id through the languages configuration point in the extension's package.json file:

    "languages": [{
        "id": "java",
        "extensions": [ ".java", ".jav" ],
        "aliases": [ "Java", "java" ]
    }]

Language supports are added using the language identifier:

    "grammars": [{
        "language": "groovy",
        "scopeName": "source.groovy",
        "path": "./syntaxes/Groovy.tmLanguage.json"
    }],
    "snippets": [{
        "language": "groovy",
        "path": "./snippets/groovy.json"
    }]

languages.registerCompletionItemProvider('php', new PHPCompletionItemProvider(), '.', '$')

New identifier guidelines

When defining a new language identifier, use the following guidelines:

• Use the lowercased programming language name.
• Search for other extensions in the Marketplace to find out if a language identifier has already been used.

Known language identifiers

The following table lists known language identifiers:

Language	Identifier
ABAP	abap
Windows Bat	bat
BibTeX	bibtex
Clojure	clojure
Coffeescript	coffeescript
C	c
C++	cpp
C#	csharp
CSS	css
Diff	diff
Dockerfile	dockerfile
F#	fsharp
Git	git-commit and git-rebase
Go	go
Groovy	groovy
Handlebars	handlebars
HTML	html
Ini	ini
Java	java
JavaScript	javascript
JavaScript React	javascriptreact
JSON	json
JSON with Comments	jsonc
LaTeX	latex
Less	less
Lua	lua
Makefile	makefile
Markdown	markdown
Objective-C	objective-c
Objective-C++	objective-cpp
Perl	perl and perl6
PHP	php
Plain Text	plaintext
PowerShell	powershell
Pug	jade
Python	python
R	r
Razor (cshtml)	razor
Ruby	ruby
Rust	rust
SCSS	scss (syntax using curly brackets), sass (indented syntax)
ShaderLab	shaderlab
Shell Script (Bash)	shellscript
SQL	sql
Swift	swift
TypeScript	typescript
TypeScript React	typescriptreact
TeX	tex
Visual Basic	vb
XML	xml
XSL	xsl
YAML	yaml