URLs with underscores

Alastair Rankine arsptr at optusnet.com.au
Wed Jul 6 06:41:40 EDT 2005


John Gruber wrote:


>>3. Change the behaviour of Markdown.

>>

>>Obviously this isn't the right forum for 1 and 2, but I wanted to get

>>feedback on 3.

>>

>

>I have two ideas about how this could be addressed:

>

>http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/markdown-discuss/2005-May/001253.html

>

I can see I arrived just a little too late for this discussion, but am
pleased to see that this issue is being thought about.

John, I like your ideas but I have one of my own for you to ponder. What
if we were to disable mid-word emphasis (ie pass underscores through
unchanged) if any _other_ punctuation was encountered in the word?

http://foo_bar_baz.com => http://foo_bar_baz.com
foo_bar_baz.cpp => foo_bar_baz.cpp
foo_bar_baz() => foo_bar_baz()
path/foo_bar_baz => path/foo_bar_baz
un_fucking_believable => un<em>fucking</em>believable
_freeway_ => <em>freeway</em>
_three_way => <em>three</em>way


Following the thread from the above-referenced message I particularly
liked Michel Fortin's comment:


> If we want Markdown to be used in comments then I say this should be

> addressed, either by changing the Markdown syntax, or by creating a new

> Markdown-For-Comment syntax. This is because you can't expect every

> commenter to read the syntax prior posting.


So this is changing, or possibly augmenting, the stated goals of
Markdown. Obeying the principle of least surprise for those unfamiliar
with the syntax is not an explicitly-stated goal currently.

FWIW I think this goal is compatible with the current goals of Markdown
and that a Markdown-for-Comment syntax is not required.



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