WMD Markdown Editor - HTML To Markdown Conversion

I am using wmd markdown editor on a project and had a question: When I post the form containing the markdown text area, it (as expected) posts html to the server. However, say upo

Solution 1:

I would suggest that you simply send and store the text as Markdown. This seems to be what you have settled on already. IMO, storing the text as Markdown will be better because you can safely strip all HTML tags out without worrying about loss of formatting - this makes your code safer, because it will be harder to use a XSS attack (although it may still be possible though - I am only saying that this part will be safer).

Solution 2:

One thing to consider is that WMD appears to have certain different edge cases from certain server-side Markdown implementations. I've definitely seen some quirks in the previews here that have shown up differently after submission (I believe one such case was attempting to escape a backtick surrounded by backticks). By sending the converted preview over the wire, you can ensure that the preview is accurate.

I'm not saying that should make your decision, but it's something to consider.

Solution 3:

Try out Pandoc. It's a little more comprehensive and reliable than Markdownify.

Solution 4:

The HTML you are seeing is just a preview, so it's not a good idea to store that in the database as you will run into issues when you try to edit. It's also not a good idea to store both versions (markdown and HTML) as the HTML is just an interpretation and you will have the same problems of editing and keeping both versions in synch.

So the best idea is to store the markdown in the db and then convert it server side before displaying.

You can use PHP Markdown for this purpose. However this is not 100% perfect conversion of what you are seeing on the javascript side and may need some tweaking.

The version that the Stack Exchange network is using is a C# implementation and there should be a python implementation you downloaded with the version of wmd you have.

The one thing I tweaked was the way new lines were rendered so I changed this in markdown.php to convert some new lines into <br> starting from line 626 in the version I have:

var $span_gamut = array(
#
# These are all the transformations that occur *within* block-level
# tags like paragraphs, headers, and list items.
#
    # Process character escapes, code spans, and inline HTML
    # in one shot.
    "parseSpan"           => -30,

    # Process anchor and image tags. Images must come first,
    # because ![foo][f] looks like an anchor.
    "doImages"            =>  10,
    "doAnchors"           =>  20,
    
    # Make links out of things like `<http://example.com/>`
    # Must come after doAnchors, because you can use < and >
    # delimiters in inline links like [this](<url>).
    "doAutoLinks"         =>  30,
    "encodeAmpsAndAngles" =>  40,

    "doItalicsAndBold"    =>  50,
    "doHardBreaks"        =>  60,
    "doNewLines"          =>  70,
    );

function runSpanGamut($text) {
#
# Run span gamut tranformations.
#
    foreach ($this->span_gamut as $method => $priority) {
        $text = $this->$method($text);
    }

    return $text;
}

function doNewLines($text) {
    return nl2br($text);
}