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md-grammar

Parser and writer for Markdown documents.

The Markdown grammar follows GitHub Flavored Markdown Spec.

Supported Markdown features

Leaf blocks

  • ATX headings (prefixed by #)
  • Fenced code blocks -- a fenced code block has an optional infostring that tells the language of the code block. Originally, language was for programming language of the code block to support syntax-specific formatting. However, language has expanded to include various file types. See the list of languages recognized by GitHub.
  • Paragraphs
  • Tables (a Markdown extension)
  • Block quotes
  • Lists

Unsupported

The following markdown features are currently unsupported.

  • Thematic breaks
  • Setext headings (with underline)
  • HTML blocks
  • Link reference definitions

Markdown extension for file import

The markdown grammar has been extended to support importing an external file to populate a fenced code block. Following the opening fence, markdown specifies an optional infostring to describe the class of the block contents. Markdown processors do not validate an infostring, but typically use it has a hint to control syntax highlighting. In this implementation, infostring has been extended with syntax to specify importing of a file or portion of a file. The motivation for this extension is to support snippets of technical code. Imports remain dynamic rather than frozen by cut and paste. Such snippets can be generated, updated, and validated by external tools. The expected benefit is timeliness and accuracy.

Extended infostring syntax

The original infostring as a class of data is still supported. Optionally, it may be extended with an import clause followed by a filename to import an entire file. If only a portion of a file is desired, it can either be specified as a range of line numbers or by the user of a search strings for the start and end of the file portion.

Syntax summary:

<class>
<class> import <filename>
<class> import <filename> <beginlineno> - <endlineno>
<class> import <filename> from "beginstring" to "endstring"
  • import, from and to are literal keywords. A hyphen - may be used as a synonym for to. The from keyword is optional.
  • Line number ranges are inclusive.
  • Search strings are delimited by double quote " while line numbers consist of digits without a delimiter.
  • The end search string matches the first instance of the string after the begin search is matched.
  • If no end line number or end search string is given, then the remainder of the file is included.

Merge2Markdown application

This utility refreshes the contents of fenced code blocks that have an import spec (a Markdown extension). See syntax above.

The intended benefit is to maintain living documents by assembling technical resources that are generated and validated elsewhere. For example, an XML snippet used as an example in a document can be validated externally by an XML processor. Furthermore, let's say that the XML schema was updated to version 2. By pulling in the most recent validated resource, the imported text will be up-to-date and accurate.

The undesirable alternative is to copy and paste those resources into the main document. The trouble with that method is that the pasted text is frozen in amber, and can become outdated and downright inaccurate over time.

Usage:

usage: Merge2Markdown [options] <input-file
 -?,--help           display usage
 -d,--import <arg>   directory for file import
 -o,--output <arg>   path of output Markdown file (required)

Command line example:

java -jar md-grammar-1.2.0-jar-with-dependencies -d importdir -o updated.md original.md

Prerequisites

This project requires Java 11 or later. It should run on any platform for which a JVM is supported. Several open-source JDK implementations are available, including Eclipse Temurin and Azul Zulu.

Build

The project is built with Maven version 3.0 or later.

License

© Copyright 2020-2021 FIX Protocol Limited

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at

http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.