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Lightweight markup languageA lightweight markup language is a markup language with a simple syntax, designed to be easy for a human to enter with a simple text editor, and easy to read in its raw form. Lightweight markup languages are used in applications where people might be expected to read the document source as well as the rendered output. For instance, a person downloading a software library might prefer to read the documentation in a text editor rather than a web browser. Another application is for entry in web-based publishing, such as weblogs and wikis, where the input interface is a simple text box. The server software converts the input to a common document markup language like HTML or XHTML. HistoryLightweight markup languages were originally used on text-only displays which could not display characters in italics or bold, so informal methods to convey this information had to be developed. This formatting choice was naturally carried forth to plain-text email communications. 1986 international standard SGML provided facilities to define and parse lightweight markup languages using grammars and tag implication. The 1998 W3C XML is a profile of SGML that omits these facilities. TypesPresentation oriented languages include AsciiDoc, BBCode, Creole, Crossmark, deplate, Epytext, EtText, Haml, JsonML, MakeDoc, Markdown, Org-mode, POD, reStructuredText, Ruby Document format, Setext, SiSU, SPIP, Xupl, Texy!, Textile, txt2tags, UDO and Wikitext. Data serialization oriented languages include Curl (programming language) (homoiconic, but also reads JSON; every object serializes), JSON, OGDL, Simple Declarative Language and YAML. Comparison of language featuresComparing language features| Language | Implementation language or platf. | HTML export tool | HTML import tool | Tables | Link titles | class attribute | id attribute | Exportable formats | License |
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| AsciiDoc | Python | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | XHTML, LaTeX, PDF, DocBook, OpenDocument, EPUB, Man page, etc. | GNU GPL |
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| BBCode | Perl, PHP, C#, Python, Ruby | No | No | No | No | No | No | HTML, XHTML | Public Domain |
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| Creole | PHP, Python, Ruby, JavaScript [1] | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | Depends on implementation | CC-by-SA 1.0 |
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| deplate | Ruby | Yes | No | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | HTML, LaTeX, DocBook, plain text | GPL |
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| Markdown | Perl (originally), C,[2][3] Python,[4] JavaScript, Haskell,[5] Ruby,[6] C#, Java, PHP.
Features are implementation dependent. | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | HTML originally; depending on the implementation, also LaTeX, ConTeXt, RTF, PDF, OpenDocument, DocBook, EPUB, MediaWiki, ReStructuredText, Man page, S5 (file format), etc. | BSD-style & GPL (both) |
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| Markdown Extra | PHP (originally), Python, Ruby | Yes | Yes | Yes[7] | Yes | No | No | XHTML | BSD-style & GPL (both) |
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| MediaWiki | Perl, PHP | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | XHTML | GNU GPL |
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| Org-mode | Emacs Lisp, Ruby (parser only), Perl | Yes | Yes[8] | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Plain text, XHTML, LaTeX, PDF, DocBook, OpenDocument, TaskJuggler, Freemind, XOXO, iCalendar | GPL |
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| PmWiki | PHP | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | XHTML 1.0 Transitional | GNU GPL |
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| POD | Perl | Yes | ? | No | Yes | ? | ? | HTML, XHTML, XML, Man page, LaTeX, plain text, RTF, DocBook | Artistic License, Perl's license |
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| reStructuredText | Python,[9][10] Haskell, Java, | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | auto | LaTeX, XML, Man page, HTML (w3c valid), PDF, EPUB, S5, ODF, Devhelp, QT Help, CHM, JSON | Public Domain |
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| Textile | PHP, Java, Perl, Python, Ruby, ASP, C# | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | XHTML | Textile License |
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| Texy! | PHP, C#; Java in progress | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | XHTML or HTML | GNU GPL v2 License |
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| txt2tags | Python,[11] PHP[12] | Yes | ? | Yes[13] | Yes | ? | ? | HTML, XHTML, SGML, Creole, AsciiDoc, MediaWiki/Wikipedia, MoinMoin, PmWiki, DokuWiki, Google Code Wiki, LaTeX, roff, Man page, MagicPoint, Lout, PageMaker, ASCII Art and Plain-text | GPL |
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Comparison of lightweight markup language syntax Text/font-face formattingComparing text formatting syntax| Language | Bold | Italic | Monospace (teletype) | Notes |
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| AsciiDoc | *bold text* | _italic text_ | +monospace text+ | Can double operators to ignore special characters (for example **bold _text** yields bold _text). | | BBCode | [b]bold text[/b] | [i]italic text[/i] | [code]monospace text[/code] | Formatting works across line breaks. |
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| Creole | **bold text** | //italic text// | {{{monospace text}}} | Triple curly braces are for nowiki which is optionally monospace in Creole (the choice of the implementor). Future Creole additions may introduce double hash marks (##) for monospace. |
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| deplate | {text style=bold: bold text} | __emphasized text__ | ''monospace text'' | deplate discourages visual formatting. Users who want to format text in a particular style have to define style classes in the given output format (CSS, LaTeX). By default, emphasized text is formatted in italics. |
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| Markdown[14] | **bold text**
or
__bold text__ | *italic text*
or
_italic text_ | Non-monospace text
monospace text
more monospace text
Inline `monospaced` text.
| Markdown doesn't use bold and italic tags, but rather em (typically italic) and strong (typically bold) tags.
Monospace text is created by indenting that line 4 spaces or one tab character, or enclosing text in backticks: `monospaces`. |
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| MediaWiki | '''bold text''' | ''italic text'' | <code>monospace text</code> | |
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| Org-mode | *bold text* | /italic text/ | =code= or ~verbatim~ | _underlined_ +strike-through+ |
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| PmWiki | '''bold text''' | ''italic text'' | @@monospace text@@ | |
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| POD | B<bold text> | I<italic text> | C<monospace text> | Indented text is also shown as monospaced code. |
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| reStructuredText | **bold text** | *italic text* | ``monospace text`` | |
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| Setext | **bold text** | ~italic text~ | | |
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| Textile[15] | *bold text*or
**bold text** | _italic text_or
__italic text__ | @monospace text@ | Textile uses em (typically italic) and strong (typically bold) tagson single symbols (and code tag), and i and b tags on double symbols. |
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| Texy! | **bold text** | *italic text*
or
//italic text//
| `monospace text` | Texy uses by default em (typically italic) and strong (typically bold) tags. It is possible to configure library to use another tags. |
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| txt2tags | **bold text** | //italic text// | ``monospace text`` | __underlined__ --strike-through-- |
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Comparing section header formatting| Language | Format | Notes |
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| AsciiDoc | = Level 1 Header
== Level 2 Header ==
=== Level 3 Header
or Level 1 Header==============Level 2 Header--------------Level 3 Header~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ | Close equals signs are optional (ignored if present). Level 1 is document/page title. |
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| BBCode | | Does not support section headers |
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| Creole | = Level 1 Header
== Level 2 Header ==
=== Level 3 Header
| Close equals signs are optional (ignored if present). |
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| deplate | * Level 1 Header
** Level 2 Header
*** Level 3 Header
| deplate's default markup is historically based on EmacsWiki, which in turn is the base for Org-mode. |
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| Markdown[14] | # Level 1 Header
## Level 2 Header
or
Level 1 Header==============Level 2 Header-------------- | Optionally you can "close" the #-style headers with any number of #'s. The closing hashes don’t need to match the number of hashes used to open the header. The #-style headers support up to 6 levels. The = and - style headers support only the two shown. |
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| MediaWiki | == Level 2 Header ==
=== Level 3 Header ===
| = is available for level 1 header, but its use is discouraged in Wikipedia (reserved for page title). More = are possible, up to 6. |
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| Org-mode | Default:* Level 1 Header** Level 2 Header*** Level 3 Header | Cleaner view using org-indent-view* Level 1 Header * Level 2 Header * Level 3 Header |
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| PmWiki | !! Level 2 Header
!!! Level 3 Header
| ! is available for level 1 header, but its use is discouraged in PmWiki (used for the page title). More ! are possible, up to 6. |
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| POD | =head1 Level 1 heading
=head2 Level 2 heading
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| reStructuredText | Chapter 1 Title===============Section 1.1 Title-----------------Subsection 1.1.1 Title~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Section 1.2 Title-----------------Chapter 2 Title=============== | Any of the following characters can be used as the "underline": = - ` : ' " ~ ^ _ * + # < >. The same character must be used for the same indentation level and may not be used for a new indentation level. |
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| Textile[15] | h1. Level 1 Header
h2. Level 2 Header
| Up to 6 levels |
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| Texy! | ### Level 1 Header
## Level 2 Header
or
Level 1 Header==============Level 2 Header-------------- | You can optionally "close" the #-style headers with an equal number of #'s. The #-style headers support up to 6 levels. The underlined style headers support four levels (### *** === ----). Resulting absolute levels numbers are calculated dynamically. Optionally, less chars can denote higher header level. |
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| txt2tags | = Level 1 Header =
== Level 2 Header ==
=== Level 3 Header ===
| Up to 6 levels. Using + characters instead of = characters creates numbered headers (the default being unnumbered). |
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Link syntaxComparing link syntax| Language | Syntax | Notes |
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| AsciiDoc | http://www.example.com
http://www.example.com[Link text]
| |
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| BBCode | [url]http://www.example.com[/url]
[url=http://www.example.com]Link text[/url]
| Some BBCode implementations can auto-parse URLs as well and convert them to a elements. |
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| Creole | [[Internal Page]]
[[Internal Page|Display Text]]
[[http://www.example.com|Link text]] [[WikiCreole:Creole1.0|InterWiki Link]]
| Free standing URL's are also detected. |
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| deplate | [[Internal Page]]
[[Internal Page][Display Text]]
[[http://www.example.com][Link text]] [[WikiCreole::Creole1.0][InterWiki Link]]
| Free standing URL's are also detected. The format is close to Org-mode—see below. |
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| Markdown[14] | <http://www.example.com> or
[Link text](http://www.example.com "optional title attribute") or
[Link text][id]
and elsewhere
[id]: http://www.example.com "optional title attribute"
| Allows for an optional title attribute. |
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| MediaWiki | [[Internal page]]
[[Internal page|Displayed text]]
[http://www.example.com]
[http://www.example.com External link]
| Wikitext can auto-parse URLs as well and convert them to a elements. |
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| Org-mode | link format: [[link][description]] or [[link]]
[[My Target][Find my target]] - text search in current file
[[#my-custom-id]] - link to custom id
[[http://orgmode.org]] - external link
[[http://orgmode.org][Org Mode]] - external link with description [[file:/path/to/some/file]] or [[/path/to/some/file]] or [[./some/file]] - file system links
| Link abbreviations[16] can optionally be set so that, for example:[[google:anything]] can be a web link to http://www.google.com/search?q=anything[[wiki:Topic][topic]] can be a file link to /long/path/to/personal/wiki/Topic.org
|
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| PmWiki | [[Internal page]]
[[Internal page|Displayed text]]
[[http://www.pmwiki.org]]
[[http://www.Pmwiki.org|External link]]
| Wikitext can auto-parse URLs without spaces in them as well and convert them to a elements. |
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| POD | L</Internal Link>
L<Perl::Module::Link>
L<http://example.com/external_link>
| The core POD standard does not support external links with titles. |
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| reStructuredText | `Link text <http://www.example.com/>`_
or
Linkname_
and elsewhere
.. _Linkname: http://example.com | |
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| Textile[15] | "Link text (optional title attribute)":http://www.example.comor
"Link text":alias
and elsewhere
[alias (optional title attribute)]http://www.example.com | Allows for an optional title attribute. |
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| Texy! | "Link text .(optional title)[opt. class or ID]{opt. style}":http://www.example.comor
"Link text":alias
and elsewhere
[alias]: http://www.example.com .(optional title)[opt. class or ID]{opt. style} | Texy! modifiers allows for an optional title attribute, class, ID, and other HTML element attributes. Example: "Link .(title)[class#id]{color: blue;rel:nofollow}" |
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| txt2tags | [Link text www.example.com] | txt2tags can auto-parse URLs as well and convert them to a elements. Also has support for targeting references within the same text, not just URLs. |
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See also- Comparison of documentation generators
References- ^ WikiCreole: Converters
- ^ peg-markdown is an implementation of markdown in C.
- ^ Discount is also an implementation of markdown in C.
- ^ Python-Markdown
- ^ Pandoc, which is written in Haskell, parses Markdown (in two forms) and ReStructuredText, as well as HTML and LaTeX; it writes from any of these formats to HTML, RTF, LaTeX, ConTeXt, OpenDocument, EPUB and several other formats, including (via LaTeX) PDF.
- ^ https://rubyforge.org/projects/kramdown/
- ^ PHP Markdown Extra
- ^ Pandoc converts markup formats to Org-mode, etc.
- ^ Docutils is an implementation of ReStructuredText in Python
- ^ Sphinx is an implementation of ReStructuredText in Python and Docutils with a number of output format Builders
- ^ http://txt2tags.org/
- ^ http://txt2tags.org/txt2tags.form.php
- ^ Txt2tags User Guide
- ^ a b c Markdown Syntax
- ^ a b c Textile Syntax
- ^ The Org Manual: Link abbreviations
External links |
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