mmd - Miniature Markdown Library

mmd is a miniature markdown parsing "library" consisting of a single C source file and accompanying header file. mmd mostly conforms to the CommonMark version of markdown syntax with the following exceptions:

• Embedded HTML markup and entities are explicitly not supported or allowed; the reason for this is to better support different kinds of output from the markdown "source", including XHTML, man, and xml2rfc.

• Tabs are silently expanded to the markdown standard of four spaces since HTML uses eight spaces per tab.

• Some pathological nested link and inline style features supported by CommonMark (******Really Strong Text******) are not supported by mmd.

In addition, mmd supports a couple (otherwise undocumented) markdown extensions:

• Metadata as used by Jekyll and other web markdown solutions.

• "@" links which resolve to headings within the file.

• Tables and task lists as used by the Github Flavored Markdown Spec.

mmd also includes a standalone utility called mmdutil that can be used to generate HTML and man page source from markdown.

I'm providing mmd as open source under the Apache License Version 2.0 with exceptions for use with GPL2/LGPL2 applications which allows you do pretty much do whatever you like with it. Please do provide feedback and report bugs to the Github project page at https://www.msweet.org/mmd so that everyone can benefit.

Requirements

You'll need a C compiler.

How to Incorporate in Your Project

Add the mmd.c and mmd.h files to your project. Include the mmd.h header in any file that needs to read/convert markdown files.

"Kicking the Tires"

The supplied makefile allows you to build the unit tests on Linux and macOS (at least), which verify that all of the functions work as expected to produce a HTML file called testmmd.html:

make test

The makefile also builds the mmdutil program.

Installing mmdutil

You can install the mmdutil program by copying it to somewhere appropriate or run:

make install

to install it in /usr/local along with a man page.

Legal Stuff

Copyright © 2017-2024 by Michael R Sweet.

mmd is licensed under the Apache License Version 2.0 with an (optional) exception to allow linking against GPL2/LGPL2-only software. See the files "LICENSE" and "NOTICE" for more information.