README.md


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# Earmark—A Pure Elixir Markdown Processor

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**N.B.**

This README contains the docstrings and doctests from the code by means of [extractly](https://hex.pm/packages/extractly)
and the following code examples are therefore verified with `ExUnit` doctests.

## Table Of Content

- [Table Of Content](#table-of-content)
- [Options](#options)
  - [Earmark.Cli.Implementation](#earmarkcliimplementation)
  - [Earmark.Options](#earmarkoptions)
  - [Earmark.Options.make_options/1](#earmarkoptionsmake_options1)
  - [Earmark.Options.with_postprocessor/2](#earmarkoptionswith_postprocessor2)
  - [Earmark](#earmark)
- [Earmark](#earmark)
  - [Abstract Syntax Tree and Rendering](#abstract-syntax-tree-and-rendering)
    - [Earmark.as_ast](#earmarkas_ast)
    - [Earmark.as_html](#earmarkas_html)
    - [Earmark.as_html!](#earmarkas_html)
    - [Options](#options)
  - [Rendering](#rendering)
    - [`escape:` defaulting to `true`](#escape-defaulting-to-true)
    - [`inner_html:` defaulting to `false`](#inner_html-defaulting-to-false)
    - [`smartypants:` defaulting to `true`](#smartypants-defaulting-to-true)
  - [Command line](#command-line)
  - [Timeouts](#timeouts)
  - [Security](#security)
  - [Earmark.Transform](#earmarktransform)
    - [Structure Conserving Transformers](#structure-conserving-transformers)
    - [Postprocessors and Convenience Functions](#postprocessors-and-convenience-functions)
    - [Structure Modifying Transformers](#structure-modifying-transformers)
- [Contributing](#contributing)
- [Author](#author)

## Options


### Earmark.Cli.Implementation

Functional (with the exception of reading input files with `Earmark.File`) interface to the CLI
returning the device and the string to be output.


### Earmark.Options

This is a superset of the options that need to be passed into `EarmarkParser.as_ast/2`

The following options are proper to `Earmark` only and therefore explained in detail

- `compact_output`: boolean indicating to avoid indentation and minimize whitespace
- `eex`: Allows usage of an `EEx` template to be expanded to markdown before conversion
- `file`: Name of file passed in from the CLI
- `line`: 1 but might be set to an offset for better error messages in some integration cases
- `ignore_strings`, `postprocessor` and `registered_processors`: processors that modify the AST returned from
   EarmarkParser.as_ast/`2` before rendering (`post` because preprocessing is done on the markdown, e.g. `eex`)
   Refer to the moduledoc of Earmark.`Transform` for details

All other options are passed onto EarmarkParser.as_ast/`2`

### Earmark.Options.make_options/1

Make a legal and normalized Option struct from, maps or keyword lists

Without a param or an empty input we just get a new Option struct

```elixir
    iex(1)> { make_options(), make_options(%{}) }
    { {:ok, %Earmark.Options{}}, {:ok, %Earmark.Options{}} }
```

The same holds for the bang version of course

```elixir
    iex(2)> { make_options!(), make_options!(%{}) }
    { %Earmark.Options{}, %Earmark.Options{} }
```


We check for unallowed keys

```elixir
    iex(3)> make_options(no_such_option: true)
    {:error, [{:warning, 0, "Unrecognized option no_such_option: true"}]}
```

Of course we do not let our users discover one error after another

```elixir
    iex(4)> make_options(no_such_option: true, gfm: false, still_not_an_option: 42)
    {:error, [{:warning, 0, "Unrecognized option no_such_option: true"}, {:warning, 0, "Unrecognized option still_not_an_option: 42"}]}
```

And the bang version will raise an `Earmark.Error` as excepted (sic)

```elixir
    iex(5)> make_options!(no_such_option: true, gfm: false, still_not_an_option: 42)
    ** (Earmark.Error) [{:warning, 0, "Unrecognized option no_such_option: true"}, {:warning, 0, "Unrecognized option still_not_an_option: 42"}]
```

### Earmark.Options.with_postprocessor/2

A convenience constructor



### Earmark


## Earmark

### Abstract Syntax Tree and Rendering

The AST generation has now been moved out to [`EarmarkParser`](https://github.com/robertdober/earmark_parser)
which is installed as a dependency.

This brings some changes to this documentation and also deprecates the usage of `Earmark.as_ast`

Earmark takes care of rendering the AST to HTML, exposing some AST Transformation Tools and providing a CLI as escript.

Therefore you will not find a detailed description of the supported Markdown here anymore as this is done in
[here](https://hexdocs.pm/earmark_parser/EarmarkParser.html)



#### Earmark.as_ast

WARNING: This is just a proxy towards `EarmarkParser.as_ast` and is deprecated, it will be removed in version 1.5!

Replace your calls to `Earmark.as_ast` with `EarmarkParse.as_ast` as soon as possible.

**N.B.** If all you use is `Earmark.as_ast` consider _only_ using `EarmarkParser`.

Also please refer yourself to the documentation of [`EarmarkParser`](https://hexdocs.pm/earmark_parser/EarmarkParser.html)


The function is described below and the other two API functions `as_html` and `as_html!` are now based upon
the structure of the result of `as_ast`.

    {:ok, ast, []}                   = EarmarkParser.as_ast(markdown)
    {:ok, ast, deprecation_messages} = EarmarkParser.as_ast(markdown)
    {:error, ast, error_messages}    = EarmarkParser.as_ast(markdown)

#### Earmark.as_html

    {:ok, html_doc, []}                   = Earmark.as_html(markdown)
    {:ok, html_doc, deprecation_messages} = Earmark.as_html(markdown)
    {:error, html_doc, error_messages}    = Earmark.as_html(markdown)

#### Earmark.as_html!

    html_doc = Earmark.as_html!(markdown, options)

Formats the error_messages returned by `as_html` and adds the filename to each.
Then prints them to stderr and just returns the html_doc

#### Options

Options can be passed into as `as_html/2` or `as_html!/2` according to the documentation.
A keyword list with legal options (c.f. `Earmark.Options`) or an `Earmark.Options` struct are accepted.

    {status, html_doc, errors} = Earmark.as_html(markdown, options)
    html_doc = Earmark.as_html!(markdown, options)
    {status, ast, errors} = EarmarkParser.as_ast(markdown, options)

### Rendering

All options passed through to `EarmarkParser.as_ast` are defined therein, however some options concern only
the rendering of the returned AST

These are:

* `compact_output:` defaults to `false`

Normally `Earmark` aims to produce _Human Readable_ output.

This will give results like these:

```elixir
    iex(1)> markdown = "# Hello\nWorld"
    ...(1)> Earmark.as_html!(markdown, compact_output: false)
    "<h1>\nHello</h1>\n<p>\nWorld</p>\n"
```


But sometimes whitespace is not desired:

```elixir
    iex(2)> markdown = "# Hello\nWorld"
    ...(2)> Earmark.as_html!(markdown, compact_output: true)
    "<h1>Hello</h1><p>World</p>"
```

Be cautions though when using this options, lines will become loooooong.


#### `escape:` defaulting to `true`

If set HTML will be properly escaped

```elixir
      iex(3)> markdown = "Hello<br />World"
      ...(3)> Earmark.as_html!(markdown)
      "<p>\nHello&lt;br /&gt;World</p>\n"
```

However disabling `escape:` gives you maximum control of the created document, which in some
cases (e.g. inside tables) might even be necessary

```elixir
      iex(4)> markdown = "Hello<br />World"
      ...(4)> Earmark.as_html!(markdown, escape: false)
      "<p>\nHello<br />World</p>\n"
```

#### `inner_html:` defaulting to `false`

This is especially useful inside templates, when a block element will disturb the layout as
in this case

```html
<span><%= Earmark.as_html!(....)%></span>
<span><%= Earmark.as_html!(....)%></span>
```

By means of the `inner_html` option the disturbing paragraph can be removed from `as_html!`'s
output

```elixir
      iex(5)> markdown = "Hello<br />World"
      ...(5)> Earmark.as_html!(markdown, escape: false, inner_html: true)
      "Hello<br />World\n"
```

**N.B.** that this applies only to top level paragraphs, as can be seen here

```elixir
      iex(6)> markdown = "- Item\n\nPara"
      ...(6)> Earmark.as_html!(markdown, inner_html: true)
      "<ul>\n  <li>\nItem  </li>\n</ul>\nPara\n"
```


* `postprocessor:` defaults to nil

Before rendering the AST is transformed by a postprocessor.
For details see the description of `Earmark.Transform.map_ast` below which will accept the same postprocessor as
a matter of fact specifying `postprocessor: fun` is conecptionnaly the same as

```elixir
          markdown
          |> EarmarkParser.as_ast
          |> Earmark.Transform.map_ast(fun)
          |> Earmark.Transform.transform
```

with all the necessary bookkeeping for options and messages

* `renderer:` defaults to `Earmark.HtmlRenderer`

  The module used to render the final document.

#### `smartypants:` defaulting to `true`

If set the following replacements will be made during rendering of inline text

    "---" → "—"
    "--" → "–"
    "' → "’"
    ?" → "”"
    "..." → "…"

### Command line

```sh
    $ mix escript.build
    $ ./earmark file.md
```

Some options defined in the `Earmark.Options` struct can be specified as command line switches.

Use

```sh
    $ ./earmark --help
```

to find out more, but here is a short example

```sh
    $ ./earmark --smartypants false --code-class-prefix "a- b-" file.md
```

will call

```sh
    Earmark.as_html!( ..., %Earmark.Options{smartypants: false, code_class_prefix: "a- b-"})
```

### Timeouts

By default, that is if the `timeout` option is not set Earmark uses parallel mapping as implemented in `Earmark.pmap/2`,
which uses `Task.await` with its default timeout of 5000ms.

In rare cases that might not be enough.

By indicating a longer `timeout` option in milliseconds Earmark will use parallel mapping as implemented in `Earmark.pmap/3`,
which will pass `timeout` to `Task.await`.

In both cases one can override the mapper function with either the `mapper` option (used if and only if `timeout` is nil) or the
`mapper_with_timeout` function (used otherwise).

For the escript only the `timeout` command line argument can be used.

### Security


Please be aware that Markdown is not a secure format. It produces
HTML from Markdown and HTML. It is your job to sanitize and or
filter the output of `Earmark.as_html` if you cannot trust the input
and are to serve the produced HTML on the Web.


### Earmark.Transform

#### Structure Conserving Transformers

For the convenience of processing the output of `EarmarkParser.as_ast` we expose two structure conserving
mappers.

##### `map_ast`

takes a function that will be called for each node of the AST, where a leaf node is either a quadruple
like `{"code", [{"class", "inline"}], ["some code"], %{}}` or a text leaf like `"some code"`

The result of the function call must be

- for nodes → a quadruple of which the third element will be ignored -- that might change in future,
and will therefore classically be `nil`. The other elements replace the node

- for strings → strings

A third parameter `ignore_strings` which defaults to `false` can be used to avoid invocation of the mapper
function for text nodes

As an example let us transform an ast to have symbol keys

```elixir
      iex(1)> input = [
      ...(1)> {"h1", [], ["Hello"], %{title: true}},
      ...(1)> {"ul", [], [{"li", [], ["alpha"], %{}}, {"li", [], ["beta"], %{}}], %{}}]
      ...(1)> map_ast(input, fn {t, a, _, m} -> {String.to_atom(t), a, nil, m} end, true)
      [ {:h1, [], ["Hello"], %{title: true}},
        {:ul, [], [{:li, [], ["alpha"], %{}}, {:li, [], ["beta"], %{}}], %{}} ]
```

**N.B.** If this returning convention is not respected `map_ast` might not complain, but the resulting
transformation might not be suitable for `Earmark.Transform.transform` anymore. From this follows that
any function passed in as value of the `postprocessor:` option must obey to these conventions.

##### `map_ast_with`

this is like `map_ast` but like a reducer an accumulator can also be passed through.

For that reason the function is called with two arguments, the first element being the same value
as in `map_ast` and the second the accumulator. The return values need to be equally augmented
tuples.

A simple example, annotating traversal order in the meta map's `:count` key, as we are not
interested in text nodes we use the fourth parameter `ignore_strings` which defaults to `false`

```elixir
       iex(2)>  input = [
       ...(2)>  {"ul", [], [{"li", [], ["one"], %{}}, {"li", [], ["two"], %{}}], %{}},
       ...(2)>  {"p", [], ["hello"], %{}}]
       ...(2)>  counter = fn {t, a, _, m}, c -> {{t, a, nil, Map.put(m, :count, c)}, c+1} end
       ...(2)>  map_ast_with(input, 0, counter, true)
       {[ {"ul", [], [{"li", [], ["one"], %{count: 1}}, {"li", [], ["two"], %{count: 2}}], %{count: 0}},
         {"p", [], ["hello"], %{count: 3}}], 4}
```

#### Postprocessors and Convenience Functions

These can be declared in the fields `postprocessor` and `registered_processors` in the `Options` struct,
`postprocessor` is prepened to `registered_processors` and they are all applied to non string nodes (that
is the quadtuples of the AST which are of the form `{tag, atts, content, meta}`

All postprocessors can just be functions on nodes or a `TagSpecificProcessors` struct which will group
function applications depending on tags, as a convienience tuples of the form `{tag, function}` will be
transformed into a `TagSpecificProcessors` struct.

```elixir
    iex(3)> add_class1 = &Earmark.AstTools.merge_atts_in_node(&1, class: "class1")
    ...(3)> m1 = Earmark.Options.make_options!(postprocessor: add_class1) |> make_postprocessor()
    ...(3)> m1.({"a", [], nil, nil})
    {"a", [{"class", "class1"}], nil, nil}
```

We can also use the `registered_processors` field:

```elixir
    iex(4)> add_class1 = &Earmark.AstTools.merge_atts_in_node(&1, class: "class1")
    ...(4)> m2 = Earmark.Options.make_options!(registered_processors: add_class1) |> make_postprocessor()
    ...(4)> m2.({"a", [], nil, nil})
    {"a", [{"class", "class1"}], nil, nil}
```

Knowing that values on the same attributes are added onto the front the following doctest demonstrates
the order in which the processors are executed

```elixir
    iex(5)> add_class1 = &Earmark.AstTools.merge_atts_in_node(&1, class: "class1")
    ...(5)> add_class2 = &Earmark.AstTools.merge_atts_in_node(&1, class: "class2")
    ...(5)> add_class3 = &Earmark.AstTools.merge_atts_in_node(&1, class: "class3")
    ...(5)> m = Earmark.Options.make_options!(postprocessor: add_class1, registered_processors: [add_class2, {"a", add_class3}])
    ...(5)> |> make_postprocessor()
    ...(5)> [{"a", [{"class", "link"}], nil, nil}, {"b", [], nil, nil}]
    ...(5)> |> Enum.map(m)
    [{"a", [{"class", "class3 class2 class1 link"}], nil, nil}, {"b", [{"class", "class2 class1"}], nil, nil}]
```

We can see that the tuple form has been transformed into a tag specific transformation **only** as a matter of fact, the explicit definition would be:

```elixir
    iex(6)> m = make_postprocessor(
    ...(6)>   %Earmark.Options{
    ...(6)>     registered_processors:
    ...(6)>       [Earmark.TagSpecificProcessors.new({"a", &Earmark.AstTools.merge_atts_in_node(&1, target: "_blank")})]})
    ...(6)> [{"a", [{"href", "url"}], nil, nil}, {"b", [], nil, nil}]
    ...(6)> |> Enum.map(m)
    [{"a", [{"href", "url"}, {"target", "_blank"}], nil, nil}, {"b", [], nil, nil}]
```

We can also define a tag specific transformer in one step, which might (or might not) solve potential performance issues
when running too many processors

```elixir
    iex(7)> add_class4 = &Earmark.AstTools.merge_atts_in_node(&1, class: "class4")
    ...(7)> add_class5 = &Earmark.AstTools.merge_atts_in_node(&1, class: "class5")
    ...(7)> add_class6 = &Earmark.AstTools.merge_atts_in_node(&1, class: "class6")
    ...(7)> tsp = Earmark.TagSpecificProcessors.new([{"a", add_class5}, {"b", add_class5}])
    ...(7)> m = Earmark.Options.make_options!(
    ...(7)>       postprocessor: add_class4,
    ...(7)>       registered_processors: [tsp, add_class6])
    ...(7)> |> make_postprocessor()
    ...(7)> [{"a", [], nil, nil}, {"c", [], nil, nil}, {"b", [], nil, nil}]
    ...(7)> |> Enum.map(m)
    [{"a", [{"class", "class6 class5 class4"}], nil, nil}, {"c", [{"class", "class6 class4"}], nil, nil}, {"b", [{"class", "class6 class5 class4"}], nil, nil}]
```

Of course the mechanics shown above is hidden if all we want is to trigger the postprocessor chain in `Earmark.as_html`, here goes a typical
example

```elixir
    iex(8)> add_target = fn node -> # This will only be applied to nodes as it will become a TagSpecificProcessors
    ...(8)>   if Regex.match?(~r{\.x\.com\z}, Earmark.AstTools.find_att_in_node(node, "href", "")), do:
    ...(8)>     Earmark.AstTools.merge_atts_in_node(node, target: "_blank"), else: node end
    ...(8)> options = [
    ...(8)> registered_processors: [{"a", add_target}, {"p", &Earmark.AstTools.merge_atts_in_node(&1, class: "example")}]]
    ...(8)> markdown =
    ...(8)> """
    ...(8)>   http://hello.x.com
    ...(8)>
    ...(8)>   [some](url)
    ...(8)> """
    ...(8)> Earmark.as_html!(markdown, options)
    "<p class=\"example\">\n  <a href=\"http://hello.x.com\" target=\"_blank\">http://hello.x.com</a></p>\n<p class=\"example\">\n  <a href=\"url\">some</a></p>\n"
```

##### Use case: Modification of Link Attributes depending on the URL

This would be done as follows

```elixir
        Earmark.as_html!(markdown, registered_processors: {"a", my_function_that_is_invoked_only_with_a_nodes})
```

##### Use case: Modification of the AST according to Annotations

**N.B.** Annotation are an _experimental_ feature in 1.4.16-pre and are documented [here](https://github.com/RobertDober/earmark_parser/#annotations)

By annotating our markdown source we can then influence the rendering. In this example we will just
add some decoration

```elixir
    iex(9)> markdown = [ "A joke %% smile", "", "Charming %% in_love" ]
    ...(9)> add_smiley = fn {_, _, _, meta} = quad, _acc ->
    ...(9)>                case Map.get(meta, :annotation) do
    ...(9)>                  "%% smile"   -> {quad, "\u1F601"}
    ...(9)>                  "%% in_love" -> {quad, "\u1F60d"}
    ...(9)>                  _            -> {quad, nil}
    ...(9)>                end
    ...(9)>                text, nil -> {text, nil}
    ...(9)>                text, ann -> {"#{text} #{ann}", nil}
    ...(9)>              end
    ...(9)> Earmark.as_ast!(markdown, annotations: "%%") |> Earmark.Transform.map_ast_with(nil, add_smiley) |> Earmark.transform
    "<p>\nA joke  ὠ1</p>\n<p>\nCharming  ὠd</p>\n"
```

#### Structure Modifying Transformers

For structure modifications a tree traversal is needed and no clear pattern of how to assist this task with
tools has emerged yet.





## Contributing

Pull Requests are happily accepted.

Please be aware of one _caveat_ when correcting/improving `README.md`.

The `README.md` is generated by `Extractly` as mentioned above and therefore contributers shall not modify it directly, but
`README.md.eex` and the imported docs instead.

Thank you all who have already helped with Earmark, your names are duely noted in [RELEASE.md](RELEASE.md).

## Author

Copyright © 2014,5,6,7,8,9, 2020,1 Dave Thomas, The Pragmatic Programmers & Robert Dober
@/+pragdave,  dave@pragprog.com & robert.dober@gmail.com

# LICENSE

Same as Elixir, which is Apache License v2.0. Please refer to [LICENSE](LICENSE) for details.

<!-- SPDX-License-Identifier: Apache-2.0 -->