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# Writing Extensions for Python-Markdown

Python-Markdown includes an API for extension writers to plug their own custom functionality and/or syntax into the parser. There are Preprocessors which allow you to alter the source before it is passed to the parser, inline patterns which allow you to add, remove or override the syntax of any inline elements, and Postprocessors which allow munging of the output of the parser before it is returned. If you really want to dive in, there are also Blockprocessors which are part of the core BlockParser.

As the parser builds an ElementTree object which is later rendered as Unicode text, there are also some helpers provided to ease manipulation of the tree. Each part of the API is discussed in its respective section below. Additionally, reading the source of some Available Extensions may be helpful. For example, the Footnotes extension uses most of the features documented here.

## Preprocessors

Preprocessors munge the source text before it is passed into the Markdown core. This is an excellent place to clean up bad syntax, extract things the parser may otherwise choke on and perhaps even store it for later retrieval.

Preprocessors should inherit from `markdown.preprocessors.Preprocessor` and implement a `run` method with one argument `lines`. The `run` method of each Preprocessor will be passed the entire source text as a list of Unicode strings. Each string will contain one line of text. The `run` method should return either that list, or an altered list of Unicode strings.

A pseudo example:

    from markdown.preprocessors import Preprocessor

    class MyPreprocessor(Preprocessor):
        def run(self, lines):
            new_lines = []
            for line in lines:
                m = MYREGEX.match(line)
                if m:
                    # do stuff
                else:
                    new_lines.append(line)
            return new_lines

## Inline Patterns

Inline Patterns implement the inline HTML element syntax for Markdown such as `*emphasis*` or `[links](http://example.com)`. Pattern objects should be instances of classes that inherit from `markdown.inlinepatterns.Pattern` or one of its children. Each pattern object uses a single regular expression and must have the following methods:

- `getCompiledRegExp()`:

  Returns a compiled regular expression.

- `handleMatch(m)`:

  Accepts a match object and returns an ElementTree element of a plain Unicode string.

Note that any regular expression returned by `getCompiledRegExp` must capture the whole block. Therefore, they should all start with `r'^(.*?)'` and end with `r'(.*?)!'`. When using the default `getCompiledRegExp()` method provided in the `Pattern` you can pass in a regular expression without that and `getCompiledRegExp` will wrap your expression for you and set the `re.DOTALL` and `re.UNICODE` flags. This means that the first group of your match will be `m.group(2)` as `m.group(1)` will match everything before the pattern.

For an example, consider this simplified emphasis pattern:

    from markdown.inlinepatterns import Pattern
    from markdown.util import etree

    class EmphasisPattern(Pattern):
        def handleMatch(self, m):
            el = etree.Element('em')
            el.text = m.group(3)
            return el

As discussed in Integrating Your Code Into Markdown, an instance of this class will need to be provided to Markdown. That instance would be created like so:

    # an oversimplified regex
    MYPATTERN = r'\*([^*]+)\*'
    # pass in pattern and create instance
    emphasis = EmphasisPattern(MYPATTERN)

Actually it would not be necessary to create that pattern (and not just because a more sophisticated emphasis pattern already exists in Markdown). The fact is, that example pattern is not very DRY. A pattern for `**strong**` text would be almost identical, with the exception that it would create a ‘strong’ element. Therefore, Markdown provides a number of generic pattern classes that can provide some common functionality. For example, both emphasis and strong are implemented with separate instances of the `SimpleTagPattern` listed below. Feel free to use or extend any of the Pattern classes found at `markdown.inlinepatterns`.

Generic Pattern Classes

- `SimpleTextPattern(pattern)`:

  Returns simple text of `group(2)` of a `pattern`.

- `SimpleTagPattern(pattern, tag)`:

  Returns an element of type “`tag`” with a text attribute of `group(3)` of a `pattern`. `tag` should be a string of a HTML element (i.e.: ‘em’).

- `SubstituteTagPattern(pattern, tag)`:

  Returns an element of type “`tag`” with no children or text (i.e.: `br`).

There may be other Pattern classes in the Markdown source that you could extend or use as well. Read through the source and see if there is anything you can use. You might even get a few ideas for different approaches to your specific situation.

## Treeprocessors

Treeprocessors manipulate an ElementTree object after it has passed through the core BlockParser. This is where additional manipulation of the tree takes place. Additionally, the InlineProcessor is a Treeprocessor which steps through the tree and runs the Inline Patterns on the text of each Element in the tree.

A Treeprocessor should inherit from `markdown.treeprocessors.Treeprocessor`, over-ride the `run` method which takes one argument `root` (an ElementTree object) and either modifies that root element and returns `None` or returns a new ElementTree object.

A pseudo example:

    from markdown.treeprocessors import Treeprocessor

    class MyTreeprocessor(Treeprocessor):
        def run(self, root):
            root.text = 'modified content'

Note that Python class methods return `None` by default when no `return` statement is defined. Additionally all Python variables refer to objects by reference. Therefore, the above `run` method modifies the `root` element in place and returns `None`. The changes made to the `root` element and its children are retained.

Some may be inclined to return the modified `root` element. While that would work, it would cause a copy of the entire ElementTree to be generated each time the Treeprocessor is run. Therefore, it is generally expected that the `run` method would only return `None` or a new ElementTree object.

For specifics on manipulating the ElementTree, see Working with the ElementTree below.

## Postprocessors

Postprocessors manipulate the document after the ElementTree has been serialized into a string. Postprocessors should be used to work with the text just before output.

A Postprocessor should inherit from `markdown.postprocessors.Postprocessor` and over-ride the `run` method which takes one argument `text` and returns a Unicode string.

Postprocessors are run after the ElementTree has been serialized back into Unicode text. For example, this may be an appropriate place to add a table of contents to a document:

    from markdown.postprocessors import Postprocessor

    class TocPostprocessor(Postprocessor):
        def run(self, text):
            return MYMARKERRE.sub(MyToc, text)

## BlockParser

Sometimes, Preprocessors, Treeprocessors, Postprocessors, and Inline Patterns are not going to do what you need. Perhaps you want a new type of block type that needs to be integrated into the core parsing. In such a situation, you can add/change/remove functionality of the core `BlockParser`. The BlockParser is composed of a number of Blockprocessors. The BlockParser steps through each block of text (split by blank lines) and passes each block to the appropriate Blockprocessor. That Blockprocessor parses the block and adds it to the ElementTree. The Definition Lists extension would be a good example of an extension that adds/modifies Blockprocessors.

A Blockprocessor should inherit from `markdown.blockprocessors.BlockProcessor` and implement both the `test` and `run` methods.

The `test` method is used by BlockParser to identify the type of block. Therefore the `test` method must return a Boolean value. If the test returns `True`, then the BlockParser will call that Blockprocessor’s `run` method. If it returns `False`, the BlockParser will move on to the next Blockprocessor.

The `test` method takes two arguments:

- `parent`: The parent ElementTree Element of the block. This can be useful as the block may need to be treated differently if it is inside a list, for example.

- `block`: A string of the current block of text. The test may be a simple string method (such as `block.startswith(some_text)`) or a complex regular expression.

The `run` method takes two arguments:

- `parent`: A pointer to the parent ElementTree Element of the block. The run method will most likely attach additional nodes to this parent. Note that nothing is returned by the method. The ElementTree object is altered in place.

- `blocks`: A list of all remaining blocks of the document. Your run method must remove (pop) the first block from the list (which it altered in place - not returned) and parse that block. You may find that a block of text legitimately contains multiple block types. Therefore, after processing the first type, your processor can insert the remaining text into the beginning of the `blocks` list for future parsing.

Please be aware that a single block can span multiple text blocks. For example, The official Markdown syntax rules state that a blank line does not end a Code Block. If the next block of text is also indented, then it is part of the previous block. Therefore, the BlockParser was specifically designed to address these types of situations. If you notice the `CodeBlockProcessor`, in the core, you will note that it checks the last child of the `parent`. If the last child is a code block (`<pre><code>...</code></pre>`), then it appends that block to the previous code block rather than creating a new code block.

Each Blockprocessor has the following utility methods available:

- `lastChild(parent)`:

  Returns the last child of the given ElementTree Element or `None` if it had no children.

- `detab(text)`:

  Removes one level of indent (four spaces by default) from the front of each line of the given text string.

- `looseDetab(text, level)`:

  Removes “level” levels of indent (defaults to 1) from the front of each line of the given text string. However, this methods allows secondary lines to not be indented as does some parts of the Markdown syntax.

Each Blockprocessor also has a pointer to the containing BlockParser instance at `self.parser`, which can be used to check or alter the state of the parser. The BlockParser tracks it’s state in a stack at `parser.state`. The state stack is an instance of the `State` class.

`State` is a subclass of `list` and has the additional methods:

- `set(state)`:

  Set a new state to string `state`. The new state is appended to the end of the stack.

- `reset()`:

  Step back one step in the stack. The last state at the end is removed from the stack.

- `isstate(state)`:

  Test that the top (current) level of the stack is of the given string `state`.

Note that to ensure that the state stack does not become corrupted, each time a state is set for a block, that state must be reset when the parser finishes parsing that block.

An instance of the `BlockParser` is found at `Markdown.parser`. `BlockParser` has the following methods:

- `parseDocument(lines)`:

  Given a list of lines, an ElementTree object is returned. This should be passed an entire document and is the only method the `Markdown` class calls directly.

- `parseChunk(parent, text)`:

  Parses a chunk of markdown text composed of multiple blocks and attaches those blocks to the `parent` Element. The `parent` is altered in place and nothing is returned. Extensions would most likely use this method for block parsing.

- `parseBlocks(parent, blocks)`:

  Parses a list of blocks of text and attaches those blocks to the `parent` Element. The `parent` is altered in place and nothing is returned. This method will generally only be used internally to recursively parse nested blocks of text.

While is is not recommended, an extension could subclass or completely replace the `BlockParser`. The new class would have to provide the same public API. However, be aware that other extensions may expect the core parser provided and will not work with such a drastically different parser.

## Working with the ElementTree

As mentioned, the Markdown parser converts a source document to an ElementTree object before serializing that back to Unicode text. Markdown has provided some helpers to ease that manipulation within the context of the Markdown module.

First, to get access to the ElementTree module import ElementTree from `markdown` rather than importing it directly. This will ensure you are using the same version of ElementTree as markdown. The module is found at `markdown.util.etree` within Markdown.

    from markdown.util import etree

`markdown.util.etree` tries to import ElementTree from any known location, first as a standard library module (from `xml.etree` in Python 2.5), then as a third party package (ElementTree). In each instance, `cElementTree` is tried first, then ElementTree if the faster C implementation is not available on your system.

Sometimes you may want text inserted into an element to be parsed by Inline Patterns. In such a situation, simply insert the text as you normally would and the text will be automatically run through the Inline Patterns. However, if you do not want some text to be parsed by Inline Patterns, then insert the text as an `AtomicString`.

    from markdown.util import AtomicString
    some_element.text = AtomicString(some_text)

Here’s a basic example which creates an HTML table (note that the contents of the second cell (`td2`) will be run through Inline Patterns latter):

    table = etree.Element("table")
    table.set("cellpadding", "2")                      # Set cellpadding to 2
    tr = etree.SubElement(table, "tr")                 # Add child tr to table
    td1 = etree.SubElement(tr, "td")                   # Add child td1 to tr
    td1.text = markdown.util.AtomicString("Cell content") # Add plain text content
    td2 = etree.SubElement(tr, "td")                   # Add second td to tr
    td2.text = "*text* with **inline** formatting."    # Add markup text
    table.tail = "Text after table"                    # Add text after table

You can also manipulate an existing tree. Consider the following example which adds a `class` attribute to `<a>` elements:

    def set_link_class(self, element):
        for child in element:
            if child.tag == "a":
                child.set("class", "myclass") #set the class attribute
            set_link_class(child) # run recursively on children

For more information about working with ElementTree see the ElementTree Documentation (Python Docs).

## Integrating Your Code Into Markdown

Once you have the various pieces of your extension built, you need to tell Markdown about them and ensure that they are run in the proper sequence. Markdown accepts an `Extension` instance for each extension. Therefore, you will need to define a class that extends `markdown.extensions.Extension` and over-rides the `extendMarkdown` method. Within this class you will manage configuration options for your extension and attach the various processors and patterns to the Markdown instance.

It is important to note that the order of the various processors and patterns matters. For example, if we replace `http://...` links with `<a>` elements, and then try to deal with inline HTML, we will end up with a mess. Therefore, the various types of processors and patterns are stored within an instance of the Markdown class in OrderedDicts. Your `Extension` class will need to manipulate those OrderedDicts appropriately. You may insert instances of your processors and patterns into the appropriate location in an OrderedDict, remove a built-in instance, or replace a built-in instance with your own.

### `extendMarkdown`

The `extendMarkdown` method of a `markdown.extensions.Extension` class accepts two arguments:

- `md`:

  A pointer to the instance of the Markdown class. You should use this to access the OrderedDicts of processors and patterns. They are found under the following attributes:

  - `md.preprocessors`
  - `md.inlinePatterns`
  - `md.parser.blockprocessors`
  - `md.treeprocessors`
  - `md.postprocessors`

  Some other things you may want to access in the markdown instance are:

  - `md.htmlStash`
  - `md.output_formats`
  - `md.set_output_format()`
  - `md.output_format`
  - `md.serializer`
  - `md.registerExtension()`
  - `md.html_replacement_text`
  - `md.tab_length`
  - `md.enable_attributes`
  - `md.smart_emphasis`

- `md_globals`:

  Contains all the various global variables within the markdown module.

Warning

With access to the above items, theoretically you have the option to change anything through various monkey_patching techniques. However, you should be aware that the various undocumented parts of markdown may change without notice and your monkey_patches may break with a new release. Therefore, what you really should be doing is inserting processors and patterns into the markdown pipeline. Consider yourself warned!

A simple example:

    from markdown.extensions import Extension

    class MyExtension(Extension):
        def extendMarkdown(self, md, md_globals):
            # Insert instance of 'mypattern' before 'references' pattern
            md.inlinePatterns.add('mypattern', MyPattern(md), '<references')

### OrderedDict

An OrderedDict is a dictionary like object that retains the order of it’s items. The items are ordered in the order in which they were appended to the OrderedDict. However, an item can also be inserted into the OrderedDict in a specific location in relation to the existing items.

Think of OrderedDict as a combination of a list and a dictionary as it has methods common to both. For example, you can get and set items using the `od[key] = value` syntax and the methods `keys()`, `values()`, and `items()` work as expected with the keys, values and items returned in the proper order. At the same time, you can use `insert()`, `append()`, and `index()` as you would with a list.

Generally speaking, within Markdown extensions you will be using the special helper method `add()` to add additional items to an existing OrderedDict.

The `add()` method accepts three arguments:

- `key`: A string. The key is used for later reference to the item.

- `value`: The object instance stored in this item.

- `location`: Optional. The items location in relation to other items.

  Note that the location can consist of a few different values:

  - The special strings `"_begin"` and `"_end"` insert that item at the beginning or end of the OrderedDict respectively.

  - A less-than sign (`<`) followed by an existing key (i.e.: `"<somekey"`) inserts that item before the existing key.

  - A greater-than sign (`>`) followed by an existing key (i.e.: `">somekey"`) inserts that item after the existing key.

Consider the following example:

    >>> from markdown.odict import OrderedDict
    >>> od = OrderedDict()
    >>> od['one'] =  1           # The same as: od.add('one', 1, '_begin')
    >>> od['three'] = 3          # The same as: od.add('three', 3, '>one')
    >>> od['four'] = 4           # The same as: od.add('four', 4, '_end')
    >>> od.items()
    [("one", 1), ("three", 3), ("four", 4)]

Note that when building an OrderedDict in order, the extra features of the `add` method offer no real value and are not necessary. However, when manipulating an existing OrderedDict, `add` can be very helpful. So let’s insert another item into the OrderedDict.

    >>> od.add('two', 2, '>one')         # Insert after 'one'
    >>> od.values()
    [1, 2, 3, 4]

Now let’s insert another item.

    >>> od.add('two-point-five', 2.5, '<three') # Insert before 'three'
    >>> od.keys()
    ["one", "two", "two-point-five", "three", "four"]

Note that we also could have set the location of “two-point-five” to be ‘after two’ (i.e.: `'>two'`). However, it’s unlikely that you will have control over the order in which extensions will be loaded, and this could affect the final sorted order of an OrderedDict. For example, suppose an extension adding “two-point-five” in the above examples was loaded before a separate extension which adds ‘two’. You may need to take this into consideration when adding your extension components to the various markdown OrderedDicts.

Once an OrderedDict is created, the items are available via key:

    MyNode = od['somekey']

Therefore, to delete an existing item:

    del od['somekey']

To change the value of an existing item (leaving location unchanged):

    od['somekey'] = MyNewObject()

To change the location of an existing item:

    t.link('somekey', '<otherkey')

### registerExtension

Some extensions may need to have their state reset between multiple runs of the Markdown class. For example, consider the following use of the Footnotes extension:

    md = markdown.Markdown(extensions=['footnotes'])
    html1 = md.convert(text_with_footnote)
    md.reset()
    html2 = md.convert(text_without_footnote)

Without calling `reset`, the footnote definitions from the first document will be inserted into the second document as they are still stored within the class instance. Therefore the `Extension` class needs to define a `reset` method that will reset the state of the extension (i.e.: `self.footnotes = {}`). However, as many extensions do not have a need for `reset`, `reset` is only called on extensions that are registered.

To register an extension, call `md.registerExtension` from within your `extendMarkdown` method:

    def extendMarkdown(self, md, md_globals):
        md.registerExtension(self)
        # insert processors and patterns here

Then, each time `reset` is called on the Markdown instance, the `reset` method of each registered extension will be called as well. You should also note that `reset` will be called on each registered extension after it is initialized the first time. Keep that in mind when over-riding the extension’s `reset` method.

### Configuration Settings

If an extension uses any parameters that the user may want to change, those parameters should be stored in `self.config` of your `markdown.extensions.Extension` class in the following format:

    class MyExtension(markdown.extensions.Extension):
        def __init__(self, **kwargs):
            self.config = {'option1' : ['value1', 'description1'],
                           'option2' : ['value2', 'description2'] }
            super(MyExtension, self).__init__(**kwargs)

When implemented this way the configuration parameters can be over-ridden at run time (thus the call to `super`). For example:

    markdown.Markdown(extensions=[MyExtension(option1='other value'])

Note that if a keyword is passed in that is not already defined in `self.config`, then a `KeyError` is raised.

The `markdown.extensions.Extension` class and its subclasses have the following methods available to assist in working with configuration settings:

- `getConfig(key [, default])`:

  Returns the stored value for the given `key` or `default` if the `key` does not exist. If not set, `default` returns an empty string.

- `getConfigs()`:

  Returns a dict of all key/value pairs.

- `getConfigInfo()`:

  Returns all configuration descriptions as a list of tuples.

- `setConfig(key, value)`:

  Sets a configuration setting for `key` with the given `value`. If `key` is unknown, a `KeyError` is raised. If the previous value of `key` was a Boolean value, then `value` is converted to a Boolean value. If the previous value of `key` is `None`, then `value` is converted to a Boolean value except when it is `None`. No conversion takes place when the previous value of `key` is a string.

- `setConfigs(items)`:

  Sets multiple configuration settings given a dict of key/value pairs.

### `makeExtension`

As noted in the library reference an instance of an extension can be passed directly to Markdown. In fact, this is the preferred way to use third-party extensions.

For example:

    import markdown
    import myextension
    myext = myextension.MyExtension(option='value')
    md = markdown.Markdown(extensions=[myext])

Markdown also accepts “named” third party extensions for those occasions when it is impractical to import an extension directly (from the command line or from within templates).

The “name” of your extension must be a string consisting of the importable path to your module using Python’s dot notation. Therefore, if you are providing a library to your users and would like to include a custom markdown extension within your library, that extension would be named `"mylib.mdext.myext"` where `mylib/mdext/myext.py` contains the extension and the `mylib` directory is on the PYTHONPATH.

The string can also include the name of the class separated by a colon. Therefore, if you were to import the class like this:

    from path.to.module import SomeExtensionClass

Then the named extension would comprise this string:

    "path.to.module:SomeExtensionClass"

You do not need to do anything special to support this feature. As long as your extension class is able to be imported, a user can include it with the above syntax.

The above two methods are especially useful if you need to implement a large number of extensions with more than one residing in a module. However, if you do not want to require that your users include the class name in their string, you must define only one extension per module and that module must contain a module-level function called `makeExtension` that accepts `**kwargs` and returns an extension instance.

For example:

    class MyExtension(markdown.extensions.Extension)
        # Define extension here...

    def makeExtension(**kwargs):
        return MyExtension(**kwargs)

When Markdown is passed the “name” of your extension as a dot notation string, it will import the module and call the `makeExtension` function to initiate your extension.

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