MARKDOWN(1p)

💖 MARKDOWN 💖

okay bestie, so this is markdown(1p) — the lil command-line glow-up that takes your Markdown-syntax files and turns them into (X)HTML. Yes. It's real. It's iconic. Periodt. 🎀

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✨ NAME ✨

markdown — convert Markdown syntax to (X)HTML. that's it, that's the whole job, and it does it flawlessly 💅

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🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

okay so here's the tea: this program ships as part of Perl's Text::Markdown module, and it's literally there as a sample-usage illustration. a demo baddie, if you will. 👑

Markdown can be invoked on any file containing Markdown-syntax, and it will produce the corresponding (X)HTML on STDOUT. no cap. watch:

$ cat file.txt
This is a *test*.

Absolutely _nothing_ to see here. _Just a **test**_!

* test
* Yup, test.
$ markdown file.txt
<p>This is a <em>test</em>.</p>

<p>Absolutely <em>nothing</em> to see here. <em>Just a <strong>test</strong></em>!</p>

<ul>
<li>test</li>
<li>Yup, test.</li>
</ul>

like??? the way it just ate that asterisk and handed you back an <em>. obsessed. 🔥

And if no file is specified, it will expect its input from STDIN — so you can just pipe vibes directly into it:

$ echo "A **simple** test" | markdown
<p>A <strong>simple</strong> test</p>

fr fr, it's giving main character energy. 🦋

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💅 OPTIONS 💅

• version — shows the full information for this version. the whole lore drop. 📖
• shortversion — shows only the version number. lowkey, sometimes that's all you need bestie.
• html4tags — produce HTML 4-style tags instead of XHTML. here's the deal: XHTML requires elements that do not wrap a block (i.e. the "hr" tag) to state they will not be closed, by closing with "/>". HTML 4-style will plainly output the tag as it comes:

$ echo '---' | markdown
<hr />
$ echo '---' | markdown --html4tags
<hr>

see the difference? /> versus plain >. tiny detail, huge consequences, iconic behavior ✨

• help — shows this documentation. hi, that's me, that's the page you're reading 🫶

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🎀 AUTHOR 🎀

Copyright 2004 John Gruber

Copyright 2008 Tomas Doran

The manpage was written by Gunnar Wolf <gwolf@debian.org> for its use in Debian systems, but can be freely used elsewhere. (generous queen behavior, honestly 🌈)

For full licensing information, please refer to Text::Markdown.pm's full documentation.

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🦋 SEE ALSO 🦋

• Text::Markdown
• <http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/>

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and that's the whole thing, bestie 💜 this was perl v5.40.0, dated 2024-09-27, and it says MARKDOWN(1p) at the top of the page so you know it's official. now go convert something pretty. mwah 💋🌸