luamd

luamd is a Markdown to HTML renderer written in portable, pure Lua. It's also really easy to use.

local md = require "md"
local htmlFragment = md[[
# This is Some Markdown
Write whatever you want.
* Supports Lists
* And other features
]]

Install

Copy md.lua to your project in whatever directory you want.

Use it

Render markdown from a string. On bad input, retuns nil and an error message.

local html, err = md.renderString(str, options)

Render markdown from a line iterator. An iterator is a function the returns successive lines when called repeatedly, and nil when there are no lines left.

local html, err = md.renderLineIterator(iter, options)

Render markdown from a list like table of lines.

local html, err = md.renderTable(t, options)

Renders strings, iterators, and tables.

local html, err = md.render(object, options)

Calling the module as a function will invoke md.render. This is the easiest way to use the module.

The options table is an optional table of options. The currently supported options are below.

tag - Surrounding HTML tag for HTML fragment.
attributes - A table attributes for the surround HTML node. For example, { style = "padding: 10px;" }.
insertHead - An HTML fragment to insert before the main body of HTML. (Inserted after the wrapping tag, if present.)
insertTail - An HTML fragment to insert after the main body of HTML. (Inserted before the closing tag, if present.)
prependHead - An HTML fragment to insert before the main body of HTML. (Inserted before the opening tag, if present.)
appendTail - An HTML fragment to insert after the main body of HTML. (Inserted after the closing tag, if present.)

Here is a little diagram for where the optional fragments go.

** prependHead **
<tag [attributes k1="v1" k2="v2" k3="v3" ...]>
    ** insertHead **

    ... rendered markdown ...

    ** insertTail **
</tag>
** appendTail **

Testing

There is no unit-testing yet, but testing can be done by running the testrender.lua script. This builds HTML files in the test_documents directory that correspond to the markdown source files. Open these with a web browser and assure that they look fine. To add more test documents, place a markdown file in the test_documents folder and add it to the documents list in testrender.lua.

Todo

Needs some good unit testing. :).

Supports most of basic Markdown syntax, but there are some features that need to be implemented. I haven't implemented them because I don't need them - yet.

HTML and code escapes - Probably the most important one on the list.
Some alternative syntax for numbered Lists (using #.)
Indent style code - I prefer backtick quoted code
Tables - GitHub style tables would be cool
Footnotes - Might need them, but not yet.

Bugs