title: Library Reference
First and foremost, Python-Markdown is intended to be a python library module used by various projects to convert Markdown syntax into HTML.
To use markdown as a module:
import markdown
html = markdown.markdown(your_text_string)Python-Markdown provides two public functions (markdown.markdown
and markdown.markdownFromFile) both of which wrap the
public class markdown.Markdown. If you're processing one
document at a time, these functions will serve your needs. However, if you need
to process multiple documents, it may be advantageous to create a single
instance of the markdown.Markdown class and pass multiple documents through
it. If you do use a single instance though, make sure to call the reset
method appropriately (see below).
The following options are available on the markdown.markdown function:
text{: #text }
: The source Unicode string. (required)
!!! note "Important"
Python-Markdown expects a **Unicode** string as input (some simple ASCII binary strings *may* work only by
coincidence) and returns output as a Unicode string. Do not pass binary strings to it! If your input is
encoded, (e.g. as UTF-8), it is your responsibility to decode it. For example:
:::python
with open("some_file.txt", "r", encoding="utf-8") as input_file:
text = input_file.read()
html = markdown.markdown(text)
If you want to write the output to disk, you *must* encode it yourself:
:::python
with open("some_file.html", "w", encoding="utf-8", errors="xmlcharrefreplace") as output_file:
output_file.write(html)
extensions{: #extensions }
: A list of extensions.
Python-Markdown provides an [API](extensions/api.md) for third parties to
write extensions to the parser adding their own additions or changes to the
syntax. A few commonly used extensions are shipped with the markdown
library. See the [extension documentation](extensions/index.md) for a
list of available extensions.
The list of extensions may contain instances of extensions and/or strings
of extension names.
:::python
extensions=[MyExtClass(), 'myext', 'path.to.my.ext:MyExtClass']
!!! note
The preferred method is to pass in an instance of an extension. Strings
should only be used when it is impossible to import the Extension Class
directly (from the command line or in a template).
When passing in extension instances, each class instance must be a subclass
of `markdown.extensions.Extension` and any configuration options should be
defined when initiating the class instance rather than using the
[`extension_configs`](#extension_configs) keyword. For example:
:::python
from markdown.extensions import Extension
class MyExtClass(Extension):
# define your extension here...
markdown.markdown(text, extensions=[MyExtClass(option='value')])
If an extension name is provided as a string, the string must either be the
registered entry point of any installed extension or the importable path
using Python's dot notation.
See the documentation specific to an extension for the string name assigned
to an extension as an entry point. Simply include the defined name as
a string in the list of extensions. For example, if an extension has the
name `myext` assigned to it and the extension is properly installed, then
do the following:
:::python
markdown.markdown(text, extensions=['myext'])
If an extension does not have a registered entry point, Python's dot
notation may be used instead. The extension must be installed as a
Python module on your PYTHONPATH. Generally, a class should be specified in
the name. The class must be at the end of the name and be separated by a
colon from the module.
Therefore, if you were to import the class like this:
:::python
from path.to.module import MyExtClass
Then load the extension as follows:
:::python
markdown.markdown(text, extensions=['path.to.module:MyExtClass'])
If only one extension is defined within a module and the module includes a
`makeExtension` function which returns an instance of the extension, then
the class name is not necessary. For example, in that case one could do
`extensions=['path.to.module']`. Check the documentation for a specific
extension to determine if it supports this feature.
When loading an extension by name (as a string), you can only pass in
configuration settings to the extension by using the
[`extension_configs`](#extension_configs) keyword.
!!! seealso "See Also"
See the documentation of the [Extension API](extensions/api.md) for
assistance in creating extensions.
extension_configs{: #extension_configs }
: A dictionary of configuration settings for extensions.
Any configuration settings will only be passed to extensions loaded by name
(as a string). When loading extensions as class instances, pass the
configuration settings directly to the class when initializing it.
!!! Note
The preferred method is to pass in an instance of an extension, which
does not require use of the `extension_configs` keyword at all.
See the [extensions](#extensions) keyword for details.
The dictionary of configuration settings must be in the following format:
:::python
extension_configs = {
'extension_name_1': {
'option_1': 'value_1',
'option_2': 'value_2'
},
'extension_name_2': {
'option_1': 'value_1'
}
}
When specifying the extension name, be sure to use the exact same
string as is used in the [extensions](#extensions) keyword to load the
extension. Otherwise, the configuration settings will not be applied to
the extension. In other words, you cannot use the entry point in on
place and Python dot notation in the other. While both may be valid for
a given extension, they will not be recognized as being the same
extension by Markdown.
See the documentation specific to the extension you are using for help in
specifying configuration settings for that extension.
output_format{: #output_format }:
: Format of output.
Supported formats are:
* `"xhtml"`: Outputs XHTML style tags. **Default**.
* `"html"`: Outputs HTML style tags.
The values can be in either lowercase or uppercase.
tab_length{: #tab_length }:
: Length of tabs in the source. Default: 4
markdown.markdownFromFile (**kwargs) {: #markdownFromFile data-toc-label='markdown.markdownFromFile' }
With a few exceptions, markdown.markdownFromFile accepts the same options as
markdown.markdown. It does not accept a text (or Unicode) string.
Instead, it accepts the following required options:
input{: #input } (required)
: The source text file.
`input` may be set to one of three options:
* a string which contains a path to a readable file on the file system,
* a readable file-like object,
* or `None` (default) which will read from `stdin`.
output{: #output }
: The target which output is written to.
`output` may be set to one of three options:
* a string which contains a path to a writable file on the file system,
* a writable file-like object,
* or `None` (default) which will write to `stdout`.
encoding{: #encoding }
: The encoding of the source text file.
Defaults to `"utf-8"`. The same encoding will always be used for input and output.
The `xmlcharrefreplace` error handler is used when encoding the output.
!!! Note
This is the only place that decoding and encoding of Unicode
takes place in Python-Markdown. If this rather naive solution does not
meet your specific needs, it is suggested that you write your own code
to handle your encoding/decoding needs.
The same options are available when initializing the markdown.Markdown class
as on the markdown.markdown function, except that the class does
not accept a source text string on initialization. Rather, the source text
string must be passed to one of two instance methods.
!!! warning
Instances of the `markdown.Markdown` class are only thread safe within
the thread they were created in. A single instance should not be accessed
from multiple threads.
The source text must meet the same requirements as the text
argument of the markdown.markdown function.
You should also use this method if you want to process multiple strings without creating a new instance of the class for each string.
md = markdown.Markdown()
html1 = md.convert(text1)
html2 = md.convert(text2)Depending on which options and/or extensions are being used, the parser may
need its state reset between each call to convert.
html1 = md.convert(text1)
md.reset()
html2 = md.convert(text2)To make this easier, you can also chain calls to reset together:
html3 = md.reset().convert(text3)The arguments of this method are identical to the arguments of the same
name on the markdown.markdownFromFile function (input,
output, and encoding). As with the
convert method, this method should be used to
process multiple files without creating a new instance of the class for
each document. State may need to be reset between each call to
convertFile as is the case with convert.