xMarkdown implementation

[european bob]

Hi all.

Newish to the list (I read through the archives a few days ago), I 
thought I would post about some code I wrote. I like the Markdown syntax 
a lot, I think it fills a valuable niche.

Basically, I ha(d|ve) a need for a Markdown system, but with various 
properties that the current Markdown code does not have (most 
importantly, dealing with invalid input and producing structurally 
correct output). I wrote something I call my "Structural Markdown 
parser" (structural referring to the implementation; the language it 
parses attempts to be Markdown).

I doubt this will interest people currently happily using Markdown; but 
it might be of use to people currently playing around with 
customisations, etc., and could be useful in comparing document 
transformation. It's currently available here:

    
<http://www.alcoholicsunanimous.com/xmarkdown/xMarkdown-current.tar.bz2> 
(19k)

... with some further explanation about why I wrote it (though 50% of 
the answer is 'because I wanted to', really) and why and how it is 
different to the daringfireball.net implementation in the root of that 
directory. It's basically targetting a slightly different audience, and 
is technically implemented very differently.  Due to the different aims, 
there are also areas it behaves differently (particularly with respect 
to maintaining well-formed output), sometimes very differently, but I 
think I've documented them.

I hope people find a separate codebase kind of interesting, anyway, not 
least from a pathalogical point of view ;)

-- bob.