md2man - markdown to manpage

md2man is a Ruby library and a set of command-line programs that convert Markdown into UNIX manual pages (both roff and HTML) using Redcarpet.

• Manuals: https://sunaku.github.io/md2man/man
• Sources: https://github.com/sunaku/md2man
• Support: https://github.com/sunaku/md2man/issues
• Package: https://rubygems.org/gems/md2man

Features

• Formats tagged and indented paragraphs (see "document format" below).

• 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.

Demonstration

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

md2man-roff EXAMPLE.markdown > EXAMPLE.1
man -l EXAMPLE.1

Also try converting that example Markdown file into a web page:

md2man-html EXAMPLE.markdown > EXAMPLE.html
open EXAMPLE.html

Installation

gem install md2man

Development

git clone git://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 man pages

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 man pages
s.files += Dir['man/**/*.{html,css,js}']  # HTML man pages
s.add_development_dependency 'md2man', '~> 4.0'

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

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