Leading/trailing whitespace in inline <code>

[Fletcher Penney]

Dan,

A few comments:


1.  Probably the best way to do this in Markdown (and variants) is exactly how you did it in HTML:

> <code>perl <a href="https://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/">Markdown.pl</a> < input.md</code>

It's more easily understood than the alternative you use, and more amenable to "post-processing" of your document that could conceivable occur (e.g. "I want to scrape all code fragments for another use").  And it works better with CSS as you yourself note.

2. The only reason I see for *not* doing this is if you are looking to export to other formats from a single source Markdown document (e.g. LaTeX, OpenDocument, etc.)  If you're using Markdown.pl, that doesn't apply.

3. "Markdown the syntax" is alive and well across many spin-off projects.

4."Markdown.pl the implementation" hasn't been updated in almost 14 years (Dec 2004 for v 1.0.1).  No new features or fixes for long-standing bugs.  You're unlikely to see any new releases from Gruber based on his prior public comments.  Based on #1 above, I would not recommend modifying Markdown.pl as your request, but if you insist you could do it yourself.

5. Updates and bug-fixes notwithstanding, Markdown.pl has been far surpassed by multiple other Markdown projects in terms of performance.  I don't recommend that anyone use Markdown.pl any more, except for the most trivial of use cases.  There are too many good alternatives out there.  (I am, of course, biased about which of the *Multi*ple *Markdown* implementations I would recommend.... ;)   (Couldn't resist the ridiculous pun there....)

6. A search of the archives (https://pairlist6.pair.net/pipermail/markdown-discuss/ <https://pairlist6.pair.net/pipermail/markdown-discuss/>) will reveal that this mailing list is all but dead.  You'll probably reach a few diehard Markdown supporters and people who simply forgot to unsubscribe.  But you may find more active help using the support channels specific to a particular (active) Markdown implementation if you don't get sufficient help here.


My $.02,

Fletcher

-- 
Fletcher T. Penney
fletcher at fletcherpenney.net 

> On Aug 24, 2018, at 9:21 AM, Dan <markdown-discuss at drmoose.net> wrote:
> 
> I'm trying to document a codebase in markdown, and finding it difficult to include links inside my code examples. If I were writing HTML, I'd write:
> 
> <code>perl <a href="https://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/">Markdown.pl</a> < input.md</code>
> 
> But, there doesn't seem to be a way to achieve this in Markdown, because any markup i include inside backticks gets HTML encoded (as it should). The closest I can do in markdown is:
> 
> `perl` [`Markdown.pl`](https://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/) `< input.md`
> 
> Which renders as
> 
> <p><code>perl</code> <a href="https://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/"><code>Markdown.pl</code></a> <code>< input.md</code></p>
> 
> but is fraught with style issues. Not only is a space a different width outside <code>, but the theme I'm using puts a background and borders on code tags.
> 
> As a workaround, would you be willing to allow _DoCodeSpans to preserve leading & trailing white space inside the backticks?
> 
> --- Markdown.pl.orig	2018-08-24 08:47:13.603707569 -0400
> +++ Markdown.pl	2018-08-24 08:48:46.949349781 -0400
> @@ -983,8 +983,6 @@
> 			(?!`)
> 		@
>  			my $c = "$2";
> - 			$c =~ s/^[ \t]*//g; # leading whitespace
> - 			$c =~ s/[ \t]*$//g; # trailing whitespace
>  			$c = _EncodeCode($c);
> 			"<code>$c</code>";
> 		@egsx;
> 
> With this patch, markdown like this:
> 
> `perl `[`Markdown.pl`](https://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/)` < input.md`
> 
> renders as 
> 
> <p><code>perl </code><a href="https://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/"><code>Markdown.pl</code></a><code> < input.md</code></p>
> 
> with the whitespace inside the <code> and no space between the </code> and the <a>, making it easier to clean up the look of the resulting webpage with CSS.
> 
> Thanks very much for your time & for Markdown.
> -Dan
> _______________________________________________
> Markdown-Discuss mailing list
> Markdown-Discuss at six.pairlist.net
> https://pairlist6.pair.net/mailman/listinfo/markdown-discuss

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://pairlist6.pair.net/pipermail/markdown-discuss/attachments/20180824/864b11f5/attachment-0001.html>