| Author: | Andrey Makarov |
|---|---|
| Version: | 1.7.3 |
Both Markdown (md) and reStructuredText (RST) are markup languages whose goal is to typeset texts with complex structure, formatting and references using simple plaintext representation.
Command line usage
Usage (to convert Markdown into HTML):
nim md2html markdown_rst.md
Output:
You're reading it!
The md2tex command is invoked identically to md2html, but outputs a .tex file instead of .html.
These tools embedded into Nim compiler; the compiler can output the result to HTML [#html] or Latex [#latex].
[#html] commands nim doc for *.nim files and nim rst2html for *.rst files
[#latex] commands nim doc2tex for *.nim and nim rst2tex for *.rst.
Full list of supported commands:
| command | runs on... | input format | output format |
|---|---|---|---|
| nim md2html | standalone md files | .md | .html HTML |
| nim md2tex | same | same | .tex LaTeX |
| nim rst2html | standalone rst files | .rst | .html HTML |
| nim rst2tex | same | same | .tex LaTeX |
| nim doc | documentation comments | .nim | .html HTML |
| nim doc2tex | same | same | .tex LaTeX |
| nim jsondoc | same | same | .json JSON |
Basic markup
If you are new to Markdown/RST please consider reading the following:
- Markdown Basic Syntax
- a long specification of Markdown: CommonMark Spec
- a short quick introduction to RST
- an RST reference: a comprehensive cheatsheet for RST
- a more formal 50-page RST specification.
Features
A large subset is implemented with some limitations and additional Nim-specific features.
Supported standard RST features:
- body elements
- sections
- transitions
- paragraphs
- bullet lists using +, *, -
- enumerated lists using arabic numerals or alphabet characters: 1. ... 2. ... or a. ... b. ... or A. ... B. ...
- footnotes (including manually numbered, auto-numbered, auto-numbered with label, and auto-symbol footnotes) and citations
- definition lists
- field lists
- option lists
- indented literal blocks
- quoted literal blocks
- line blocks
- simple tables
- directives (see official documentation in RST directives list):
- image, figure for including images and videos
- code
- contents (table of contents), container, raw
- include
- admonitions: "attention", "caution", "danger", "error", "hint", "important", "note", "tip", "warning", "admonition"
- substitution definitions: replace and image
- comments
- inline markup
- emphasis, strong emphasis, inline literals, hyperlink references (including embedded URI), substitution references, standalone hyperlinks, internal links (inline and outline)
- `interpreted text` with roles :literal:, :strong:, emphasis, :sub:/:subscript:, :sup:/:superscript: (see RST roles list for description).
- inline internal targets
Additional Nim-specific features
- directives: code-block [cmp:Sphinx], title, index [cmp:Sphinx]
- predefined roles
- :nim: (default), :c: (C programming language), :python:, :yaml:, :java:, :cpp: (C++), :csharp (C#). That is every language that highlite supports. They turn on appropriate syntax highlighting in inline code.Note: default role for Nim files is :nim:, for *.rst it's currently :literal:.
- generic command line highlighting roles:
- :cmd: for commands and common shells syntax
- :console: the same for interactive sessions (commands should be prepended by $)
- :program: for executable names [cmp:Sphinx] (one can just use :cmd: on single word)
- :option: for command line options [cmp:Sphinx]
- :tok:, a role for highlighting of programming language tokens
- :nim: (default), :c: (C programming language), :python:, :yaml:, :java:, :cpp: (C++), :csharp (C#). That is every language that highlite supports. They turn on appropriate syntax highlighting in inline code.
- triple emphasis (bold and italic) using ***
- :idx: role for `interpreted text` to include the link to this text into an index (example: Nim index).
- double slash // in option lists serves as a prefix for any option that starts from a word (without any leading symbols like -, --, /):
//compile compile the project //doc generate documentation
Here the dummy // will disappear, while options compile and doc will be left in the final document.
[cmp:Sphinx] similar but different from the directives of Python Sphinx directives and Sphinx roles extensions
Extra features
Optional additional features, by default turned on:
- emoji / smiley symbols
- Markdown tables
- Markdown code blocks. For them the same additional arguments as for RST code blocks can be provided (e.g. test or number-lines) but with a one-line syntax like this:
```nim test number-lines=10 echo "ok" ```
- Markdown links
- Markdown headlines
- Markdown block quotes
- using 1 as auto-enumerator in enumerated lists like RST # (auto-enumerator 1 can not be used with # in the same list)
Idiosyncrasies
Currently we do not aim at 100% Markdown or RST compatibility in inline markup recognition rules because that would provide very little user value. This parser has 2 modes for inline markup:
- Markdown-like mode which is enabled by roPreferMarkdown option (turned on by default).Note: RST features like directives are still turned on
- Compatibility mode which is RST rules.
`\` -- WRONG ``\`` -- GOOD So single backticks can always be input: `\`` will turn to ` code
- no support for the rule of 2 spaces causing a line break in Markdown (use RST "line blocks" syntax for making line breaks)
- interpretation of Markdown block quotes is also slightly different, e.g. case
>>> foo > bar >>baz
is a single 3rd-level quote foo bar baz in original Markdown, while in Nim we naturally see it as 3rd-level quote foo + 1st level bar + 2nd level baz:
foo
bar
baz
Limitations
- no Unicode support in character width calculations
- body elements
- no roman numerals in enumerated lists
- no doctest blocks
- no grid tables
- some directives are missing (check official RST directives list): parsed-literal, sidebar, topic, math, rubric, epigraph, highlights, pull-quote, compound, table, csv-table, list-table, section-numbering, header, footer, meta, class
- no role directives and no custom interpreted text roles
- some standard roles are not supported (check RST roles list)
- no generic admonition support
- inline markup
- no simple-inline-markup
- no embedded aliases
Additional resources
- See Nim DocGen Tools Guide for the details about nim doc command and idiosyncrasies of documentation markup in .nim files and Nim programming language projects.
- See also documentation for rst module -- Nim RST/Markdown parser.