Adding support for more embedded languages

2 mins
markdown shell

After the latest update, mdsh now lets you embed languages other than Bash in your Markdown, when writing your posts or pages.

The syntax for embedding dynamic content in your pages using Bash is:

<?bash
// some Bash code
;?>

And now you can replace the bash bit with the name of any of these other languages: ash, awk, c, dash, gawk, node, nodejs, perl, php, python, ruby.

For example, to include the output of some Ruby code in your Markdown, you would do this:

<?ruby
puts "hello world"
;?>

Or to include some output from Python, do this:

<?python
print "hello world";
;?>

Or to include some JavaScript output (using NodeJS), do this:

<?node
console.log("hello world");
;?>

And so on...

So in summary:

Users of mdsh now have an easy way of including dynamically generated content in their pages, generated using a range of scripting languages.

Advanced

Running C code

If you have TCC installed, you can even embed C code in your Markdown, and it will be compiled and run "on-the-fly" - the output of the compiled C code will end up in your final Markdown and HTML.

Example:

<?c
main(){
  puts("Hello world");
}
;?>

Note, this feature is not heavily tested. To install TCC, search for the package tcc using your package manager.

Running scripts

For more complex needs, you can run scripts, rather than commands:

<?bash
python path/to/script.py
;?>

or

<?bash
node path/to/script.js
;?>

or

<?bash
tcc -run path/to/script.c arg1 arg2
;?>

Targeting specific versions of interpretors

You can target specific versions of Perl, PHP, Python or Ruby. Just make sure you have the version chosen installed. Example, if using <?php5, then php5 should be available in your $PATH. You may want to create some aliases or symlinks to achieve this.

Here are some examples:

<?perl5.24.1
print "hello world from Perl";
;?>

or

<?php5
echo "hello world from PHP";
;?>

or

<?python2.7
print "hello world from Python2";
;?>

or

<?python3.6
print "hello world from Python3";
;?>

or

<?ruby-2.3.3
puts "hello world from Ruby";
;?>

And so on... In each case, the given interpretor (ruby-2.3.3, for example) should be available in your $PATH.

Of course, you can always use nvm, rvm (etc) to manage the versions of Node, Ruby (etc) that you use, if you prefer to do it that way.

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