Data loss issue: Adjacent List Types

[John MacFarlane]

+++ Alan Hogan [Jun 06 11 10:20 ]:

> Esteemed human authors and robotic parse-bots:

> 

> I recently discovered that most or all Markdown implementations, including Gruber’s original in Perl, have an odd behavior with regards to lists that follow each other. Namely, a bulleted list followed by a numbered list, or vice-versa, is masked as if it were part of the first list (and of the first list’s type.)

> 

> For example, consider the following input:

> 

> ~~~~~~

> 

> - Bulleted item

> - Second bulleted item

> 

> 1. Numbered list

> 2. Second numbered item

> 

> ~~~~~~


I strongly agree that this should be parsed as an unordered list
followed by an ordered list.  That is how any normal person would
construe it.

I also think that the following should be interpreted as two different
unordered lists (that is, the change of bullet character should be
significant):

~~~~~~
* one
* two

- new
- list
~~~~~~

Finally, I think that the starting number of an ordered list should be
significant. Otherwise there is no way to have a running list with
commentary in between (but not part of) the items.

(By the way, pandoc implements this last feature, and the next major
version will implement the first two.)

John