markdownlib

An ActionScript 3.0 implementation of Markdown based on the original work of John Gruber.

A straightforward (as much as possible) port of Markdown.pl v1.0.1.

This project can also be seen as a nice tutorial on how to port perl regexp to AS3 regexp, with identical or similar features, with limitations, and in some cases their workaround.

Why do it like that ?

I looked around and there were no AS3 libraries to parse the markdown format (well .. there were a gist Showdown.as but it was not working).

To write such a library, you have basically two choices, either you fully embrace the original code and try to port it line-by-line and stay as close as possible to the original, or you go the opposite way and try to rethink the whole thing.

I decided to go with the line-by-line port to first acclimate myself on how markdown internals are working and to produce a fairly compatible output.

Also, I deliberately used a perl'ish coding style for the AS3 code organisation, instead of having a class with static methods you have a public function relying on internal functions (yes you can also do it this way in AS3).

Install

This AS3 library is meant to be used in the context of Redtamarin or other utilities like as3shebang.

We do not have yet a package manager for Redtamarin, so you will have to install "by hand" (eg. copy the right file at the right place).

Flash Platform Compatibility

The code does not rely on any particular API or features not available in the Flash Player or AIR runtime and so should work there too.

My main focus being Redtamarin I did not provide a build to generate a SWC yet.

Simply put, it should work but I did not test it and you are welcome to try it for yourself (and contributions are welcome).

Usage

ABC library

var markdownlib:* = Domain.currentDomain.load( "markdownlib.abc" );
trace( markdownlib + " loaded"  ); //optional

import text.markdown.*;

//use any definitions of the markdown library

sources

Copy markdownlib/src to your current AS3 project path.

In your main AS3 file

include "markdownlib.as";

import text.markdown.*;

//use any definitions of the markdown library

Example

import text.markdown.*;

var md:String = "This is **Markdown**";
var html:String = Markdown( md );
trace( html );"

Known Differences in Output

To be continued ...