Provided by: libtext-mediawikiformat-perl_1.0-2_all 
NAME
Text::MediawikiFormat - Translate Wiki markup into other text formats
VERSION
Version 1.0
SYNOPSIS
use Text::MediawikiFormat 'wikiformat';
my $html = wikiformat ($raw);
my $text = wikiformat ($raw, {}, {implicit_links => 1});
DESCRIPTION
<http://wikipedia.org> and its sister projects use the PHP Mediawiki to format their
pages. This module attempts to duplicate the Mediawiki formatting rules. Those
formatting rules can be simple and easy to use, while providing more advanced options for
the power user. They are also easy to translate into other, more complicated markup
languages with this module. It creates HTML by default, but could produce valid POD,
DocBook, XML, or any other format imaginable.
The most important function is "Text::MediawikiFormat::format()". It is not exported by
default, but will be exported as "wikiformat()" if any options at all are passed to the
exporter, unless the name is overridden explicitly. See "EXPORT" for more information.
It should be noted that this module is written as a drop in replacement for
Text::WikiMarkup that expands on that modules functionality and provides a default rule
set that may be used to format text like the PHP Mediawiki. It is also well to note early
that if you just want a Mediawiki clone (you don't need to customize it heavily and you
want integration with a back end database), you should look at
Wiki::Toolkit::Formatter::Mediawiki.
FUNCTIONS
format
"format()" takes one required argument, the text to convert, and returns the converted
text. It allows two optional arguments. The first is a reference to a hash of tags used
to override the function's default behavior. Anything passed in here will override the
default tags. The second argument is a hash reference of options. The options are
currently:
prefix
The prefix of any links to wiki pages. In HTML mode, this is the path to the Wiki.
The actual linked item itself will be appended to the prefix. This is useful to
create full URIs:
{prefix => 'http://example.com/wiki.pl?page='}
extended
A boolean flag, true by default, to let square brackets mark links. An optional title
may occur after the Wiki targets, preceded by an open pipe. URI titles are separated
from their title with a space. These are valid extended links:
[[A wiki page|and the title to display]]
[http://ximbiot.com URI title]
Where the linking semantics of the destination format allow it, the result will
display the title instead of the URI. In HTML terms, the title is the content of an
"A" element (not the content of its "HREF" attribute).
You can use delimiters other than single square brackets for marking extended links by
passing a value for "extended_link_delimiters" in the %tags hash when calling
"format".
Note that if you disable this flag, you should probably enable "implicit_links" or
there will be no automated way to link to other pages in your wiki.
implicit_links
A boolean flag, false by default, to create links from StudlyCapsStrings.
absolute_links
A boolean flag, true by default, which treats any links that are absolute URIs (such
as "http://www.cpan.org/") specially. Any prefix will not apply. This should maybe
be called implicit_absolute_links since the "extended" option enables absolute links
inside square brackets by default.
A link is any text that starts with a known schema followed by a colon and one or more
non-whitespace characters. This is a distinct subset of what URI recognizes as a URI,
but is a good first-order approximation. If you need to recognize more complex URIs,
use the standard wiki formatting explained earlier.
The recognized schemas are those defined in the "schema" value in the %tags hash.
"schema" defaults to "http", "https", "ftp", "mailto", and "gopher".
process_html
This flag, true by default, causes the formatter to ignore block level wiki markup
(code, ordered, unordered, etc...) when they occur on lines which also contain allowed
block-level HTML tags (<pre>, <ol>, <ul>, </pre>, etc...). Phrase level wiki markup
(emphasis, strong, & links) is unaffected by this flag.
format_line
$formatted = format_line ($raw, $tags, $opts);
This function is never exported. It formats the phrase elements of a single line of text
(emphasised, strong, and links).
This is only meant to be called from Text::MediawikiFormat::Block and so requires $tags
and $opts to have all elements filled in. If you find a use for it, please let me know
and maybe I will have it default the missing elements as "format()" does.
Wiki Format
Refer to <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Contents/Editing_Wikipedia> for description of
the default wiki format, as interpreted by this module. Any discrepencies will be
considered bugs in this module, with a few exceptions.
Unimplemented Wiki Markup
Templates, Magic Words, and Wanted Links
Templates, magic words, and the colorization of wanted links all require a back end
data store that can be consulted on the existance and content of named pages.
"Text::MediawikiFormat" has deliberately been constructed such that it operates
independantly from such a back end. For an interface to "Text::MediawikiFormat" which
implements these features, see Wiki::Toolkit::Formatter::Mediawiki.
Tables
This is on the TODO list.
EXPORT
If you'd like to make your life more convenient, you can optionally import a subroutine
that already has default tags and options set up. This is especially handy if you use a
prefix:
use Text::MediawikiFormat prefix => 'http://www.example.com/';
wikiformat ('some text');
Tags are interpreted as default members of the $tags hash normally passed to "format",
except for the five options (see above) and the "as" key, who's value is interpreted as an
alternate name for the imported function.
To use the "as" flag to control the name by which your code calls the imported function,
for example,
use Text::MediawikiFormat as => 'formatTextWithWikiStyle';
formatTextWithWikiStyle ('some text');
You might choose a better name, though.
The calling semantics are effectively the same as those of the "format()" function. Any
additional tags or options to the imported function will override the defaults. This
code:
use Text::MediawikiFormat as => 'wf', extended => 0;
wf ('some text', {}, {extended => 1});
enables extended links, after specifying that the default behavior should be to disable
them.
GORY DETAILS
Tags
There are two types of Wiki markup: phrase markup and blocks. Blocks include lists, which
are made up of lines and can also contain other lists.
Phrase Markup
The are currently three types of wiki phrase markup. These are the strong and emphasized
markup and links. Links may additionally be of three subtypes, extended, implicit, or
absolute.
You can change the regular expressions used to find strong and emphasized tags:
%tags = (
strong_tag => qr/\*([^*]+?)\*/,
emphasized_tag => qr|/([^/]+?)/|,
);
$wikitext = 'this is *strong*, /emphasized/, and */em+strong/*';
$htmltext = wikiformat ($wikitext, \%tags, {});
You can also change the regular expressions used to find links. The following just sets
them to their default states (but enables parsing of implicit links, which is not the
default):
my $html = wikiformat
(
$raw,
{implicit_link_delimiters => qr!\b(?:[A-Z][a-z0-9]\w*){2,}!,
extended_link_delimiters => qr!\[(?:\[[^][]*\]|[^][]*)\]!,
},
{implicit_links => 1}
);
In addition, you may set the function references that format strong and emphasized text
and links. The strong and emphasized functions receive only the text to be formatted as
an argument and are expected to return the formatted text. The link formatter also
recieves references to the $tags and $opts arrays. For example, the following sets the
strong and emphasized formatters to their default state while replacing the link formatter
with one which strips href information and returns only the title text:
my $html = wikiformat
(
$raw,
{strong => sub {"<strong>$_[0]</strong>"},
emphasized => sub {"<em>$_[0]</em>"},
link => sub
{
my ($tag, $opts, $tags) = @_;
if ($tag =~ s/^\[\[([^][]+)\]\]$/$1/)
{
my ($page, $title) = split qr/\|/, $tag, 2;
return $title if $title;
return $page;
}
elsif ($tag =~ s/^\[([^][]+)\]$/$1/)
{
my ($href, $title) = split qr/ /, $tag, 2;
return $title if $title;
return $href;
}
else
{
return $tag;
}
},
},
);
Blocks
The default block types are "code", "line", "paragraph", "paragraph_break", "unordered",
"ordered", "definition", and "header".
Block entries in the tag hashes must contain array references. The first two items are
the tags used at the start and end of the block. The third and fourth contain the tags
used at the start and end of each line. Where there needs to be more processing of
individual lines, use a subref as the third item. This is how the module processes
ordered lines in HTML lists and headers:
my $html = wikiformat
(
$raw,
{ordered => ['<ol>', "</ol>\n", '<li>', "<li>\n"],
header => ['', "\n", \&_make_header],
},
);
The first argument to these subrefs is the post-processed text of the line itself.
(Processing removes the indentation and tokens used to mark this as a list and checks the
rest of the line for other line formattings.) The second argument is the indentation
level (see below). The subsequent arguments are captured variables in the regular
expression used to find this list type. The regexp for headers is:
$html = wikiformat
(
$raw,
{blocks => {header => qr/^(=+)\s*(.+?)\s*\1$/}}
);
The module processes indentation first, if applicable, and stores the indentation level
(the length of the indentation removed).
Lists automatically start and end as necessary.
Because regular expressions could conceivably match more than one line, block level markup
is processed in a specific order. The "blockorder" tag governs this order. It contains a
reference to an array of the names of the appropriate blocks to process. If you add a
block type, be sure to add an entry for it in "blockorder":
my $html = wikiformat
(
$raw,
{invisible => ['', '', '', ''],
blocks => {invisible => qr!^--(.*?)--$!},
blockorder => [qw(code header line ordered
unordered definition invisible
paragraph_break paragraph)]
},
},
);
Finding blocks
As has already been mentioned in passing, "Text::MediawikiFormat" uses regular expressions
to find blocks. These are in the %tags hash under the "blocks" key. For example, to
change the regular expression to find code block items, use:
my $html = wikiformat ($raw, {blocks => {code => qr/^:\s+/}});
This will require a leading colon to mark code lines (note that as writted here, this
would interfere with the default processing of definition lists).
Finding Blocks in the Correct Order
As intrepid bug reporter Tom Hukins pointed out in CPAN RT bug #671, the order in which
"Text::MediawikiFormat" searches for blocks varies by platform and version of Perl.
Because some block-finding regular expressions are more specific than others, what you
intend to be one type of block may turn into a different list type.
If you're adding new block types, be aware of this. The "blockorder" entry in %tags
exists to force "Text::MediawikiFormat" to apply its regexes from most specific to least
specific. It contains an array reference. By default, it looks for ordered lists first,
unordered lists second, and code references at the end.
SEE ALSO
Wiki::Toolkit::Formatter::Mediawiki
SUPPORT
You can find documentation for this module with the perldoc command.
perldoc Text::MediawikiFormat
You can also look for information at:
• AnnoCPAN: Annotated CPAN documentation
<http://annocpan.org/dist/Text-MediawikiFormat>
• CPAN Ratings
<http://cpanratings.perl.org/d/Text-MediawikiFormat>
• RT: CPAN's request tracker
<http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/Bugs.html?Dist=Text-MediawikiFormat>
• Search CPAN
<http://search.cpan.org/dist/Text-MediawkiFormat>
AUTHOR
Derek Price "derek at ximbiot.com" is the author.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This module is derived from Text::WikiFormat, written by chromatic. chromatic's original
credits are below:
chromatic, "chromatic at wgz.org", with much input from the Jellybean team (including
Jonathan Paulett). Kate L Pugh has also provided several patches, many failing tests, and
is usually the driving force behind new features and releases. If you think this module
is worth buying me a beer, she deserves at least half of it.
Alex Vandiver added a nice patch and tests for extended links.
Tony Bowden, Tom Hukins, and Andy H. all suggested useful features that are now
implemented.
Sam Vilain, Chris Winters, Paul Schmidt, and Art Henry have all found and reported silly
bugs.
Blame me for the implementation.
BUGS
The link checker in "format_line()" may fail to detect existing links that do not follow
HTML, XML, or SGML style. They may die with some SGML styles too. Sic transit gloria
mundi.
TODO
• Optimize "format_line()" to work on a list of lines
COPYRIGHT & LICENSE
Copyright (c) 2006-2008 Derek R. Price, all rights reserved.
Copyright (c) 2002 - 2006, chromatic, all rights reserved.
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same
terms as Perl itself.