Re: How to convert from OPML to Markdown without escaping the Markdown

[Patrick Kenny <ptmkenny-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w@public.gmane.org>]

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Ok, thanks, that's helpful.

The problem may stem from the OPML spec being vague and OPML having two 
rather different use cases: cataloging RSS feeds and storing outlines of 
books, task lists, and things in outlining software.

That said, the OPML spec <http://dev.opml.org/spec2.html> says this about 
the <outline> element:

*Text attribute  <http://dev.opml.org/spec2.html#textAttribute>*
> Every outline element must have at least a *text* attribute, which is 
> what is displayed when an outliner 
> <http://support.opml.org/basicOutlining> opens the OPML file. To omit the 
> text attribute would render the outline useless in an outliner. This is 
> what the user would see 
> <http://images.scripting.com/archiveScriptingCom/2005/10/14/badopml2.gif> -- 
> clearly an unacceptable user experience. Part of the purpose of producing 
> OPML is to give users the power to accumulate and organize related 
> information in an outliner. This is as important a use for OPML as data 
> interchange. 
> A missing text attribute in any outline element is an error. 
> Text attributes may contain encoded HTML markup.

So HTML tags should be allowed.  If HTML tags are allowed, then Markdown 
should be allowed as well, since it's basically a shorthand for HTML.

Upon further investigation, it's not just the * lists that get escaped.

Ordered lists 1. 2. 3. etc. are also escaped as 1\. 2\., and headers are 
escaped as \#\#\#\#.

So it seems to me that OPML is not handled correctly during conversion.

I can write a shell script to get around this, but maybe there's a better 
way?

On Friday, April 12, 2019 at 8:58:36 AM UTC+9, John MacFarlane wrote:
>
>
> The way the OPML reader and writer work is: 
>
> - <outline> elements correspond to section headings 
>   The text attribute is the heading text 
> - The contents of the _note attribute, if present, are 
>   parsed as Markdown and treated as text under the 
>   heading. 
>
> I have never used OPML myself, so I don't have a good 
> sense why it's this way; maybe someone else does. 
>
>
> Patrick Kenny <ptmk...-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w@public.gmane.org <javascript:>> writes: 
>
> > I'm relatively new to Pandoc and hoping someone can point me in the 
> right 
> > direction. 
> > 
> > 
> > I created an outline in some software that exports to OPML.  This 
> outline 
> > contains HTML tags and Markdown (for example, lists made of *). 
> > 
> > 
> > So, when I export the outline to OPML, it looks like this: 
> > 
> > 
> >  <outline text="List title"> 
> > 
> >    <outline text="* Item 1" /> 
> > 
> >    <outline text="* Item 2" /> 
> > 
> >   <outline text="* Item 3" /> 
> > 
> > 
> > I converted from OPML to Markdown like this: 
> > 
> > 
> > pandoc -o -s myfile.md myfile.opml --from=opml --to=commonmark 
> > 
> > However, this results in the markdown being escaped: 
> > 
> > 
> > List title 
> > 
> > \* Item 1 
> > 
> > \* Item 2 
> > 
> > \* Item 3 
> > 
> > 
> > HTML tags are escaped similarly. 
> > 
> > 
> > How can I turn this escaping off? I want the markdown in the OPML file 
> to 
> > be preserved (treated as markdown) upon conversion to markdown. 
> > 
> > 
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