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File types

Last modified: 18 December 2024

For language-specific features (such as syntax highlighting and code analysis) in files representing different languages and technologies, CLion maintains a list of file types, each of which links a language service with one or more filename patterns.

The default list of file types covers all relevant filename patterns, but you can add new file types for your custom language files and change the associated filename patterns for existing file types.

When you open a file in the editor, CLion chooses the file type and the corresponding language service according to the filename pattern. If the filename doesn't match any of the patterns registered for file types, you can associate the filename pattern with a specific file type.

Apart from that, you can make CLion the default application for opening specific file types from the file manager on your operating system.