[SOLVED] Looking for a tool to produce Markdown from HTML, man-page or Restructured Text

Michael Uplawski · 10-21-2017, 06:36 AM

Hi.

I want to update a blog-post on LQ with the content of an updated man-page.

This had been cumbersome the last time and I do not feel like doing it again.

As the original text is written as Restructured Text, then converted to man, pdf and/or html,
Do you see a way to have it converted to the markdown-syntax that is understood by LQ?

Online converters are not up to the task; the HTML is either too long or just not the right kind of HTML and anyway, - the markdown produced is probably not good, either.

TIA,

Michael

Turbocapitalist · 10-21-2017, 06:52 AM

I'd look at one of these : http://neilb.org/reviews/markdown.html
Such as HTML::WikiConverter::Markdown

Most of the information is being thrown away so you could do something simple with HTML::Parser or XML::TreeBuilder.

ondoho · 10-21-2017, 09:54 AM

pandoc.

Shadow_7 · 10-21-2017, 02:48 PM

+1 pandoc, it's what one uses to convert .md to html, I'm sure it handles the other way too.

ondoho · 10-22-2017, 12:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shadow_7

pandoc, it's what one uses to convert .md to html

nah, that would be markdown, actually.
___

but markdown doesn't do

Quote:

the other way too.

Michael Uplawski · 10-22-2017, 01:53 PM

Thank you.

I have never touched Perl.
Pandoc does something, but obviously I am not seeing the point.

Solution: vi

Code:

:%s/<strong>\[^<]*<\/strong>/[B]\1[\/B]/g
:%s/<p><strong>\(.*\)<\/strong><\/p>/\r[B]\1[\/B]/g
:%s/<em>\(.*\)<\/em>/[I]\1[\/I]/g

and so on ...

Solution: I uploaded the HTML-version of the man-page to my web-site.

Turbocapitalist · 10-23-2017, 01:48 AM

perl is pretty easy if you keep it short.

Code:

#!/usr/bin/perl

use HTML::WikiConverter;
use strict;
use warnings;

my $file = shift || '/dev/stdin';

open (FILE, $file) or
    die("Can't open $file: $!\n");

my $html = do { local $/;  <FILE> };

close(FILE);

my $wc = new HTML::WikiConverter( dialect => 'Markdown' );

print $wc->html2wiki( $html );

exit(0);

That module converts to several dialects. See "man HTML::WikiConverter" for the details.

Michael Uplawski · 10-24-2017, 12:44 AM

Thanks a lot For the example.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Turbocapitalist

perl is pretty easy if you keep it short.

Code:

#!/usr/bin/perl

use HTML::WikiConverter;
use strict;
use warnings;

my $file = shift || '/dev/stdin';

open (FILE, $file) or
    die("Can't open $file: $!\n");

my $html = do { local $/;  <FILE> };

close(FILE);

my $wc = new HTML::WikiConverter( dialect => 'Markdown' );

print $wc->html2wiki( $html );

exit(0);

That module converts to several dialects. See "man HTML::WikiConverter" for the details.

Turbocapitalist · 10-24-2017, 01:26 AM

No problem. A code sample is sometimes needed to get started the first time. There are actually two examples in that script, either of which are handy to reuse. Here is a shorter example with fewer distractions:

Code:

#!/usr/bin/perl

use HTML::WikiConverter;

use strict;
use warnings;

my $file = shift || '/dev/stdin';

my $wc = new HTML::WikiConverter( dialect => 'Markdown' );

print $wc->html2wiki( file => $file );

exit( 0 );

The manual pages for the CPAN modules nearly always have the essentials in an example.

Code:

man HTML::WikiConverter