URLs with underscores

[Waite, Paul]

Because Markdown is designed to make it easier to write HTML. So I think there's a presumption in the language design that it'll be converted into HTML. And it doesn't convert _this_ into <i>, it converts it into <em>, which can be italic, or bold, or 42pt purple, depending on the stylesheet.

So people's expectations about whether _this_ means 'italic' in e-mails don't necessarily determine the issue of what _this_ should mean in Markdown, as Markdown doesn't let you enter italics.

	yours sincerely,
	Paul Waite
	Web Developer
	TSO

	Phone: +44 (0)20 7873 8784
	E-mail: paul.waite at tso.co.uk
	Web: www.tso.co.uk

	TSO The Information Management Company


-----Original Message-----
From: markdown-discuss-bounces at six.pairlist.net
[mailto:markdown-discuss-bounces at six.pairlist.net]On Behalf Of
Bowerbird at aol.com
Sent: 07 July 2005 19:17
To: markdown-discuss at six.pairlist.net; Bowerbird at aol.com
Subject: re: URLs with underscores



first, mid-word emphasis is not rare.  uncommon, certainly, but not rare.

second, the most common conventions in plain-text communication
are for underscores to indicate italics and asterisks to indicate bold.
many other characters are used too, but those are the most common.
while those might not be the delimiters you would choose to use,
they are the ones that emerged out of the chaos as the "winners"...

third, i think it is quite possible to determine if a string is a u.r.l.
-- there are usually more than enough clues to make it unequivocal --
and then, when it is, to skip the translation of underscores to italics.

***

paul said:

>   It's worth remembering that _this_ in Markdown doesn't italicise text, 

>   it places it within HTML emphasis tags. The traditional default display 

>   for emphasis may be italics, but <em> doesn't = italics.


righto.  now can you tell us _why_ that is "worth remembering" here?

-bowerbird
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