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<a name="Summary"></a>
<h3 class="title">Summary</h3>

This is a Python implementation of John Gruber's
[Markdown](http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/).
The current version of python-markdown implements all Markdown syntax
features and fully passes [Markdown Test Suite
1.0](http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/markdown-discuss/2004-December/000909.html).  It also supports footnotes (see [this
thread](http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/markdown-discuss/2005-August/001480.html))
and attributes (see [this
thread](http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/markdown-discuss/2005-August/001486.html)).  Python-Markdown defaults to ignoring middle-word emphasis through
underscore, but this it can be switched off.  (See [this
thread](http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/markdown-discuss/2005-October/001610.html)
for discussion.)

If you find something missing, [submit a bug report](http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=add&group_id=153041&atid=790198) or send me an email (qaramazov-at-gmail.com).  Better yet, send me a patch.

<a name="Installation"></a>
<h3 class="title">Installation</h3>

[Download](http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=153041)
the zip file and extract the files.  If you want to install markdown
as as a module into your python tree, run "python setup.py install"
from a directory where you unzip the files.

<a name="Commandline"></a>
<h3 class="title">Command Line Usage</h3>

To use markdown.py by itself, run it as 

    python markdown.py <input_file>

or 

    python markdown.py <input_file> > <output_file>
    
If you are using Python 2.3 or higher, you can also use advanced
command line options to specify encoding or to run extensions.


    $ python markdown.py
    usage: markdown.py INPUTFILE [options]

    options:
      -h, --help            show this help message and exit
      -f OUTPUT_FILE, --file=OUTPUT_FILE
                            write output to OUTPUT_FILE
      -e ENCODING, --encoding=ENCODING
                            encoding for input and output files
      -q, --quiet           suppress all messages
      -v, --verbose         print info messages
      --noisy               print debug messages
      -x EXTENSION, --extension=EXTENSION
                            load extension EXTENSION

For an extension to be ran this way it must be provided in a module
named ``mdx_{extensionname}.py`` which should be in your python path,
e.g. ``mdx_footnotes.py``.  It can then be invoked as by name (the
part after "mdx_"):

    python markdown.py -x footnotes text_with_footnotes.txt output.html

If the extension supports config options (see below), you can also
pass them in as well:

    python markdown.py -x "footnotes(PLACE_MARKER=~~~~~~~~)"

<a name="Module"></a>
<h3 class="title">Using the Module</h3>

To use it as markdown as a module:

    import markdown
    html = markdown.markdown(your_text_string)

Alternatively, if you want to pass more options:

    import markdown
    md = Markdown(text, 
                  extensions=['footnotes'],	
                  extension_configs= {'footnotes' : 
		                       ('PLACE_MARKER','~~~~~~~~')}
                  encoding='utf8')

    return md.toString()

or, if you want to process multiple strings:

    md = Markdown(text=None)
    md.toString(text)

Finally, if the extensions are fully compatible, you should be able to
get a list of extensions and their config parameters:

    for x in md.getExtensions():

        print x.name
        print x.oneliner
        print x.getConfigInfo()


<a name="Extending"></a>
<h3 class="title">Writing Extensions</h3>

The functionality of the script can be extended without changing the
code, by inserting additional pre-processors, post-processors or
inline patterns into Markdown's pipeline.

**Pre-processors** operate on lines of source text and are run in the
beginning.  It is sufficient to write a class with a run() method that
takes a list of text lines as a parameter and returns the same or a
new list.  An instance of the preprocessor can then be inserted into
the markdown pipeline.  Preprocessor classes must extend
markdown.Preprocessor.

    class SamplePreprocessor (markdown.Preprocessor) :
        def run(self, lines) :
            for i in range(len(lines)) :
                if lines[i].startswith(SOMETHING) :
                    lines[i] = do_something(lines[i])

            return lines

    md_instance.preprocessors.insert(SOME_INDEX, SamplePreprocessor())

**Post-processors** operate on a NanoDom tree and run at the very end.
They need to implement a "run" method that takes a pointer to a NanoDom
document.  Postprocessor classes must extend markdown.Postprocessor.

    class SamplePostprocessor (markdown.Postprocessor):
        def run(self, doc) :
            doc.documentElement.appendChild(doc.createElement("new"))
    

    md_instance.postprocessors.insert(SOME_INDEX, SamplePostprocessor())

Finally, **inline patterns** can be added.  Each inline pattern
includes a regular expression pattern and a method for turning a match
object into a DOM fragment

    class MyCustomPattern (markdown.Pattern) :
        def handleMatch(self, m, doc) :
            el = doc.createElement('custom')
            el.setAttribute('stuff', m.group(3)) 
            return el

    new_pattern = MyCustomPattern(r'your regular expression here')
    md_instance.inlinePatterns.insert(SOME_INDEX, new_pattern)

Preprocessors, patterns and postprocessors need to then be wrapped
together into an extension, which should be implemented as a class
that extends markdown.Extension and should over-ride the
``extendMarkdown()`` method.  ``extendMarkdown()`` is called during
markdown construction, giving the extension a pointer to the markdown
object (the ``md`` parameters) and markdown's global variables
(``md_globals``), which in theory gives the extension an option of
changing anything it cares to change.  However, what it really should
be doing is inserting preprocessors, postprocessors and patterns into
the markdown pipeline:


   def extendMarkdown(self, md, md_globals) :

        self.md = md

        # Insert a preprocessor before ReferencePreprocessor
        index = md.preprocessors.index(md_globals['REFERENCE_PREPROCESSOR'])
        preprocessor = FootnotePreprocessor(self)
        preprocessor.md = md
        md.preprocessors.insert(index, preprocessor)


If the extension uses any parameters that the use may want to change,
they should be stored in self.config in the following format:

        self.config = {parameter_1_name : [value1, description1],
	               parameter_2_name : [value2, description2] }

When stored this way the config parameters can be over-riden from the
command line or at the time Markdown is instantiated:

    markdown.py -x myextension(SOME_PARAM=2) inputfile.txt > output.txt

Note that parameters should always be assumed to be set to string
values, and should be converted at the run time, e.g.

    i += int(self.getConfig("SOME_PARAM"))

Each extension should ideally be placed in its own module starting
with ``mdx_`` prefix (e.g. ``mdx_footnotes.py``).  The module must
provide a module-level function called ``makeExtensions`` that takes
as an optional parameter a list of configuration over-rides and
returns an instance of the extension.  E.g.:

    def makeExtension(configs=None) :
	return FootnoteExtension(configs=configs)

See the implementation of footnote support (mdx_footnotes.py) for an
example of using all three in combination to provide reasonably
complex additional functionality.  (I use a pre-processor to collect
footnote definitions, an inline pattern to handle uses of footnotes
inside the text and a post-processor to attach the HTML of the actual
footnotes at the end of the document)

Other extensions:

* [Table-of-contents extension](extensions/mdx_toc.py) by Chris Clark
  (inserts a table of contents), upgraded by
  Yuri.

* [Title extension](extensions/mdx_title.py) by Chris Clark (inserts a
  title element)

* [WikiLinks](http://achinghead.com/archives/67/adding-wikilinks-to-markdown-in-python/)
  by Waylan Limberg (not yet upgraded)

<a name="Credits"></a>
<h3 class="title">Credits</h3>

* The first version of this script was written by [Manfred
    Stienstra](http://www.dwerg.net/), who is responsible for about
    a quarter of the code.
* Daniel Krech provided the setup.py script.
* G. Clark Haynes submitted a patch for indented lists.
* Tiago Cogumbreiro submitted an email autolink fix.
* Sergej Chodarev submitted a patch for treatment of `<hr/>` tags.
* Chris Clark submitted a patch to handle `<mailto:...>` syntax and a reg ex for "smart" emphasis (ignoring underscores within a word).
* Steward Midwinter wrote command-line parser and cleaned up comments.
* Many other people helped by reporting bugs.

<a name="License"></a>
<h3 class="title">License</h3>

The code is dual-licensed under
[GPL](http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html) and [BSD
License](http://www.opensource.org/licenses/bsd-license.php).  Other
licensing arrangements can be discussed.

<a name="Contact"></a>
<h3 class="title">Contact Info</h3>

Email qaramazov [at] gmail.com if you have any questions or spot any
bugs.  (Feel free to write in English, Russian, Portuguese or
Spanish.)

Or subscribe to [python-markdown-discuss](http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/python-markdown-discuss).


<a name="Change"></a>
<h3 class="title">Recent Changes</h3>

Oct 11, 2006: Releasing v. 1.6 with a whole bunch of changes (since
May 15), including:

- Fixed a bug that caused some text to be lost after comments.
- Added exception for PHP tags when handling html blocks.
- Incorporated Sergej Chodarev's patch to fix a problem with ampersand
  normalization and html blocks.
- Switched to using optparse.  Added proper support for unicode.
- Fixed the <!--@address.com> problem (Tracker #1501354).  
- Stopped catching unquoted titles in reference links.  Stopped
  creating blank headers.

May 15, 2006: A bug with lists, recursion on block-level elements,
run-in headers, spaces before headers, unicode input (thanks to Aaron
Swartz). Sourceforge tracker #s: 1489313, 1489312, 1489311, 1488370,
1485178, 1485176. (v. 1.5)

Mar. 24, 2006: Switched to a not-so-recursive algorithm with
_handleInline.  (v. 1.4)

For a full list of changes see CHANGE_LOG.txt in the current version
of markdown.

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