• Code: https://github.com/sunaku/md2man
• Docs: https://sunaku.github.io/md2man/man
• Bugs: https://github.com/sunaku/md2man/issues

md2man - markdown to manpage

md2man is a Ruby library and a set of command-line programs that convert Markdown into UNIX manpages as well as HTML webpages using Redcarpet.

Features

• Formats indented, tagged, and normal paragraphs: described in md2man(5).

• Translates all HTML4 and XHTML1 entities into native roff equivalents.

• Supports markdown extensions such as PHP Markdown Extra tables.

• Usable from the command line as a filter in a UNIX command pipeline.

Examples

Try converting this example Markdown file into a UNIX manual page:

md2man-roff EXAMPLE.markdown > EXAMPLE.1

You can view the resulting UNIX manual page in your man(1) viewer:

man -l EXAMPLE.1

Next, try converting the same example file into a HTML web page:

md2man-html EXAMPLE.markdown > EXAMPLE.html

You can view the resulting HTML manual page in your web browser:

firefox EXAMPLE.html

Installation

gem install md2man

Development

git clone https://github.com/sunaku/md2man
cd md2man
bundle install
bundle exec rake --tasks        # packaging tasks
bundle exec md2man-roff --help  # run it directly
bundle exec md2man-html --help  # run it directly

Usage

For roff output

At the command line

See md2man-roff(1) manual:

md2man-roff --help

Inside a Ruby script

Use the default renderer:

require 'md2man/roff/engine'

your_roff_output = Md2Man::Roff::ENGINE.render(your_markdown_input)

Build your own renderer:

require 'md2man/roff/engine'

engine = Redcarpet::Markdown.new(Md2Man::Roff::Engine, your_options_hash)
your_roff_output = engine.render(your_markdown_input)

Define your own renderer:

require 'md2man/roff/engine'

class YourManpageRenderer < Md2Man::Roff::Engine
  # ... your stuff here ...
end

engine = Redcarpet::Markdown.new(YourManpageRenderer, your_options_hash)
your_roff_output = engine.render(your_markdown_input)

Mix-in your own renderer:

require 'md2man/roff'

class YourManpageRenderer < Redcarpet::Render::Base
  include Md2Man::Roff
  # ... your stuff here ...
end

engine = Redcarpet::Markdown.new(YourManpageRenderer, your_options_hash)
your_roff_output = engine.render(your_markdown_input)

For HTML output

At the command line

See md2man-html(1) manual:

md2man-html --help

Inside a Ruby script

Use the default renderer:

require 'md2man/html/engine'

your_html_output = Md2Man::HTML::ENGINE.render(your_markdown_input)

Build your own renderer:

require 'md2man/html/engine'

engine = Redcarpet::Markdown.new(Md2Man::HTML::Engine, your_options_hash)
your_html_output = engine.render(your_markdown_input)

Define your own renderer:

require 'md2man/html/engine'

class YourManpageRenderer < Md2Man::HTML::Engine
  # ... your stuff here ...
end

engine = Redcarpet::Markdown.new(YourManpageRenderer, your_options_hash)
your_html_output = engine.render(your_markdown_input)

Mix-in your own renderer:

require 'md2man/html'

class YourManpageRenderer < Redcarpet::Render::Base
  include Md2Man::HTML
  # ... your stuff here ...
end

engine = Redcarpet::Markdown.new(YourManpageRenderer, your_options_hash)
your_html_output = engine.render(your_markdown_input)

Building manpages

At the command line

See md2man-rake(1) manual:

md2man-rake --help

Inside a Ruby script

Add this snippet to your gemspec file:

s.files += Dir['man/man?/*.?']         # UNIX manpages
s.files += Dir['man/**/*.{html,css}']  # HTML manpages
s.add_development_dependency 'md2man', '~> 5.0'

Add this line to your Rakefile:

require 'md2man/rakefile'

You now have a rake md2man task that builds manual pages from Markdown files (with ".markdown", ".mkd", or ".md" extension) inside man/man*/ directories. There are also sub-tasks to build manual pages individually as roff or HTML.

If you're using Bundler, this task also hooks into Bundler's gem packaging tasks and ensures that your manual pages are built for packaging into a gem:

bundle exec rake build
gem spec pkg/*.gem | fgrep man/

License

Like my work? 👍 Please spare a life today as thanks! 🐮🐷🐔🐟🙊✌️💞

Copyright 2011 Suraj N. Kurapati https://github.com/sunaku

Released under the ISC license. See the LICENSE file for details.