automatic links within backticks not escaped properly

[david scotson]

Hi,

The backtick method of escaping code gives an odd result when you try
to escape a link surrounded with angle brackets (referred to in the
documentation as "automatic links").

input:

`<http://url>`

output:

<p><code>&lt;a href="http://url"&gt;http://url&lt;/a&gt;</code></p>

expected output:

<p><code>&lt;http://url&gt;</code></p>

It appears to be rendering the link before escaping it. Is this a
known issue? It doesn't happen with the leading spaces method for
creating preformatted code blocks and it doesn't happen with the other
methods of creating a link.

Note that I use PHP Markdown mostly but I see this behaviour with both Dinguses.

Also, why is the angle bracket syntax used here when it would appear
more consistent to use square brackets? In the other link styles the
text to be linked is placed between square brackets. In this case the
text to be linked just happens to be the same as the link destination.
Another factor is that having something that looks a bit like an HTML
tag (i.e. some text surrounded by angle brackets) seems to be asking
for trouble in a system that allows HTML too.

Thanks for your time,

dave scotson