[BUG] Markdown export of description list with nested list [9.5.2 (release_9.5.2-25-gaf6f12 @ /usr/local/share/emacs/28.1/lisp/org/)]

[BUG] Markdown export of description list with nested list [9.5.2 (release_9.5.2-25-gaf6f12 @ /usr/local/share/emacs/28.1/lisp/org/)]

[Vangelis Evangelou]

Remember to cover the basics, that is, what you expected to happen and
what in fact did happen.  You don't know how to make a good report?  See

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Your bug report will be posted to the Org mailing list.
------------------------------------------------------------------------

The following example is not exported correctly to markdown.

- description item 1 ::
  + list 1
  + list 2
- description item 2 ::
  + list 3
  + list 4

The example consists of a description list, where each item is described
by a list. There is no text following ::. Calling
org-md-export-as-markdown gives me

-   **description item 1:** -   list 1
    -   list 2
-   **description item 2:** -   list 3
    -   list 4

when instead should give

-   **description item 1:**
    -   list 1
    -   list 2
-   **description item 2:**
    -   list 3
    -   list 4

The example is exported to html correctly.

Emacs  : GNU Emacs 28.1 (build 1, x86_64-pc-linux-gnu, X toolkit,
cairo version 1.16.0, Xaw3d scroll bars)
 of 2022-04-09
Package: Org mode version 9.5.2 (release_9.5.2-25-gaf6f12 @
/usr/local/share/emacs/28.1/lisp/org/)

Re: [BUG] Markdown export of description list with nested list [9.5.2 (release_9.5.2-25-gaf6f12 @ /usr/local/share/emacs/28.1/lisp/org/)]

[Rohit Patnaik]

As I understand it, the bug is in `org-md-item'. It formats the tag portion of the
description with **%s**, and then simply concatenates the content. This is fine
when the content is a simple string, but when the content includes line breaks
(i.e. when content is itself a list), it doesn't realize that it needs to
include a line break between the tag and the content.

ox-html handles this case correctly because ox-html distinguishes between plain
list types, using <li> for ordered and unordered lists and <dt> & <dd> for
description lists.

I think this issue can be fixed by prefixing `contents' with a newline if `tag'
is present and `contents' itself contains multiple lines. However, this feels
like a hack, and I'd be open to better approaches.

-- Rohit

Re: [BUG] Markdown export of description list with nested list [9.5.2 (release_9.5.2-25-gaf6f12 @ /usr/local/share/emacs/28.1/lisp/org/)]

[Tim Cross]

"Rohit Patnaik" <quanticle@quanticle.net> writes:

> As I understand it, the bug is in `org-md-item'. It formats the tag portion of the
> description with **%s**, and then simply concatenates the content. This is fine
> when the content is a simple string, but when the content includes line breaks
> (i.e. when content is itself a list), it doesn't realize that it needs to
> include a line break between the tag and the content.
>
> ox-html handles this case correctly because ox-html distinguishes between plain
> list types, using <li> for ordered and unordered lists and <dt> & <dd> for
> description lists.
>
> I think this issue can be fixed by prefixing `contents' with a newline if `tag'
> is present and `contents' itself contains multiple lines. However, this feels
> like a hack, and I'd be open to better approaches.
>
> -- Rohit

I think the real issue here is that the particular version of markdown
used by org-mode (see http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/) does
not include support for description lists - it simply isn't part of the
supported syntax.

I"m not convinced adding support is a good idea as I suspect it will
create other complications and only reveal other syntax limitations - it
will be like pulling on a thread and could result in just unravelling
everything. As it says in the version of markdown syntax used -

 | For any markup that is not covered by Markdown’s syntax, you simply use
 | HTML itself. There’s no need to preface it or delimit it to indicate
 | that you’re switching from Markdown to HTML; you just use the tags.