Metadata syntax (was Universal syntax for Markdown)

[Fletcher Penney]

Side note - the actual Hamlet line has a colon at the end of the line.
So it would be fine in MMD.

;)

F

Sent from my iPhone

On Sep 19, 2011, at 10:30 AM, David Sanson <dsanson at gmail.com> wrote:


> The reStructuredText field list syntax might be a reasonable compromise.

>

> I like the fact that the metadata can occur anywhere in the document.

>

> The [RST spec][] itself says that the leading colon can be dropped "in

> well-defined contexts such as when a field list invariably occurs at

> the beginning of a document (PEPs and email messages)." As John's

> example from Hamlet shows, this isn't the case for markdown documents.

> But it would be possible to grandfather in existing MMD documents by

> insisting, as MMD does, that first lines that contain a colon are

> unambiguously metadata, with apologies to Hamlet. Or one could

> introduce a delimiter, like `--`, and say that lines before that

> delimiter are unambiguously metadata, and so don't require the leading

> colon.

>

> Frankly, I don't think it wouldn't be a terrible thing if

> implementations disagreed on this one detail---when is a leading colon

> required?---but agreed on everything else. Those who wish to trade

> flexibility for beauty could leave off the leading colon; those who

> value inter-operability over beauty could leave it on.

>

> David

>

> [RST spec]: http://docutils.sourceforge.net/docs/ref/rst/restructuredtext.html#field-lists

> _______________________________________________

> Markdown-Discuss mailing list

> Markdown-Discuss at six.pairlist.net

> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/markdown-discuss