NAME

CommonMark - Interface to the CommonMark C library

SYNOPSIS

use CommonMark;

my $doc = CommonMark->parse(
    file  => $file,
    smart => 1,
);

my $html = CommonMark->markdown_to_html($markdown);
my $doc  = CommonMark->parse_file($file);
my $doc  = CommonMark->parse_document($markdown);
my $doc  = CommonMark->create_document;

DESCRIPTION

This module is a wrapper around the official CommonMark C library libcmark. It closely follows the original API.

The main module provides some entry points to parse documents. The bulk of features is available through CommonMark::Node objects of which the parse tree is made. CommonMark::Iterator is a useful class to walk through the nodes in a tree. CommonMark::Parser provides a push parser interface.

Installation

Installation of libcmark

Please note that the libcmark API isn't stable yet. This version of the Perl bindings is known to work with all releases between 0.21.0 and 0.28.3, but there's no guarantee that it can be compiled with later versions. Also note that upgrading a dynamically linked version of libcmark may require recompilation of the Perl distribution.

curl -LJO https://github.com/jgm/cmark/archive/0.28.3.tar.gz
tar xzf cmark-0.28.3.tar.gz
cd cmark-0.28.3
make [INSTALL_PREFIX=/prefix]
make test
make install

See the libcmark README for details.

Installation from a CPAN tarball

If libcmark is in a standard location:

perl Makefile.PL
make
make test
make install

Otherwise:

perl Makefile.PL \
    INC="-I/prefix/include" \
    LIBS="-L/prefix/lib -lcmark"
make
make test
make install

See the documentation of ExtUtils::MakeMaker for additional options. The PERL_MM_OPT environment variable is especially useful.

export PERL_MM_OPT='INC="-I..." LIBS="-L... -lcmark"'

Build from a repository checkout

This distribution uses Dist::Zilla with the external plugins MakeMaker::Awesome and CopyFilesFromBuild. You can build and test with dzil:

dzil test
dzil build

The files generated by Dist::Zilla are included in the repository, so you can use the standard build process as well.

markdown_to_html

my $html = CommonMark->markdown_to_html( $markdown, [$options] );

Converts a Markdown string to HTML. $options is a bit field containing the parser and render options. It defaults to zero (OPT_DEFAULT).

Equivalent to

my $html = CommonMark->parse_document($markdown)->render_html;

parse

my $doc = CommonMark->parse(
    string        => $string,
    normalize     => $bool,    # Optional
    smart         => $bool,    # Optional
    validate_utf8 => $bool,    # Optional
);

my $doc = CommonMark->parse(
    file          => $handle,
    normalize     => $bool,    # Optional
    smart         => $bool,    # Optional
    validate_utf8 => $bool,    # Optional
);

Convenience function to parse documents. Exactly one of the string or file options must be provided. When given a string, calls "parse_document". When given a file, calls "parse_file". normalize, smart, and validate_utf8 enable the respective parser options.

Returns the CommonMark::Node of the root document.

parse_document

my $doc = CommonMark->parse_document( $markdown, [$options] )

Parses a CommonMark document from a string returning the CommonMark::Node of the document root. $options is a bit field containing the parser options. It defaults to zero (OPT_DEFAULT).

parse_file

my $doc = CommonMark->parse_file( $file, [$options] );

Parses a CommonMark document from a file handle returning the CommonMark::Node of the document root. $options is a bit field containing the parser options. It defaults to zero (OPT_DEFAULT).

Parser options

The parser options are a bit field created by ORing the following constants:

CommonMark::OPT_DEFAULT => 0
CommonMark::OPT_NORMALIZE
CommonMark::OPT_VALIDATE_UTF8
CommonMark::OPT_SMART

Parser options can be imported from CommonMark with tag opt.

use CommonMark qw(:opt);

OPT_NORMALIZE makes sure that adjacent text nodes are merged in the parse tree.

OPT_SMART enables the "smart quote" features which turns vertical into typographic quotation marks, double and triple hyphens into en and em dashes, and triple periods into ellipses.

OPT_VALIDATE_UTF8 turns on UTF-8 validation. Normally, this isn't necessary because Perl should always provide proper UTF-8. The option may be used if you don't trust the safety of Perl's internal UTF-8 handling.

Node creation

my $document = CommonMark->create_document(
    children => \@children,
);
my $header = CommonMark->create_heading(
    level    => $level,
    children => \@children,
    text     => $literal,
);
my $paragraph = CommonMark->create_paragraph(
    children => \@children,
    text     => $literal,
);
my $block_quote = CommonMark->create_block_quote(
    children => \@children,
);
my $list = CommonMark->create_list(
    type     => $type,
    delim    => $delim,
    start    => $start,
    tight    => $tight,
    children => \@children,
);
my $item = CommonMark->create_item(
    children => \@children,
);
my $code_block = CommonMark->create_code_block(
    fence_info => $fence_info,
    literal    => $literal,
);
my $html = CommonMark->create_html_block(
    literal => $html,
);
my $custom_block = CommonMark->create_custom_block(
    on_enter => $raw_prefix,
    on_exit  => $raw_suffix,
    children => \@children,
    text     => $literal,
);
my $thematic_break = CommonMark->create_thematic_break;
my $text = CommonMark->create_text(
    literal => $literal,
);
my $code = CommonMark->create_code(
    literal => $literal,
);
my $html_inline = CommonMark->create_html_inline(
    literal => $literal,
);
my $emph = CommonMark->create_emph(
    children => \@children,
    text     => $literal,
);
my $strong = CommonMark->create_strong(
    children => \@children,
    text     => $literal,
);
my $url = CommonMark->create_url(
    url      => $url,
    title    => $title,
    children => \@children,
    text     => $literal,
);
my $image = CommonMark->create_image(
    url      => $url,
    title    => $title,
    children => \@children,
    text     => $literal,
);
my $custom_inline = CommonMark->create_custom_inline(
    on_enter => $raw_prefix,
    on_exit  => $raw_suffix,
    children => \@children,
    text     => $literal,
);
my $softbreak = CommonMark->create_softbreak;
my $linebreak = CommonMark->create_linebreak;

These convenience functions can be used to create nodes, set properties, and add children in a single operation. All parameters are optional.

The children parameter expects an arrayref of nodes to be added as children. The special text parameter adds a single text child with literal $literal. It can't be used together with children. All other parameters correspond to a node property.

libcmark version information

my $version = CommonMark->version;
my $string  = CommonMark->version_string;
my $version = CommonMark->compile_time_version;
my $string  = CommonMark->compile_time_version_string;

Return the version number or version string of libcmark, either the library version linked against at run time or compile time.

COPYRIGHT

This software is copyright (C) by Nick Wellnhofer.

This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as the Perl 5 programming language system itself.