path: root/README.adoc

= Asciidoctor
:awestruct-layout: base
:homepage: http://asciidoctor.org
:asciidoc: http://asciidoc.org
:sources: https://github.com/asciidoctor/asciidoctor
:issues: https://github.com/asciidoctor/asciidoctor/issues
:forum: http://discuss.asciidoctor.org
:org: https://github.com/asciidoctor
:contributors: https://github.com/asciidoctor/asciidoctor/graphs/contributors
:templates: https://github.com/asciidoctor/asciidoctor/blob/master/lib/asciidoctor/backends
:gitscm-next: https://github.com/github/gitscm-next
:seed-contribution: https://github.com/github/gitscm-next/commits/master/lib/asciidoc.rb
:tilt: https://github.com/rtomayko/tilt
:freesoftware: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
:gist: https://gist.github.com
:fork: https://help.github.com/articles/fork-a-repo
:branch: http://learn.github.com/p/branching.html
:pr: https://help.github.com/articles/using-pull-requests
:license: https://github.com/asciidoctor/asciidoctor/blob/master/LICENSE
:idprefix:
:idseparator: -

{homepage}[Asciidoctor] is a pure Ruby processor for converting
{asciidoc}[AsciiDoc] source files and strings into HTML 5, DocBook 4.5
and other formats. It's http://rubygems.org/gems/asciidoctor[published
as a RubyGem] and is available under the MIT open source license.

ifndef::awestruct[]
image::https://travis-ci.org/asciidoctor/asciidoctor.png?branch=master[Build Status, link="https://travis-ci.org/asciidoctor/asciidoctor"]
endif::awestruct[]

Asciidoctor uses a set of built-in ERB templates to render the document
to HTML 5 or DocBook 4.5. We've matched the rendered output as close as
possible to the default output of the native Python processor. You can
override this behavior by providing {tilt}[Tilt]-compatible templates.
See the <<usage>> section for more details.

Asciidoctor currently works (read as 'tested') with Ruby 1.8.7, Ruby
1.9.3, Ruby 2.0.0, JRuby 1.7.2 and Rubinius 1.2.4 (on Linux, Mac and
Windows). We expect it will work with other versions of Ruby as well and
would welcome help in testing it out.

The initial code from which Asciidoctor emerged was written by
http://github.com/nickh[Nick Hengeveld] to process the git man pages for
the {gitscm-next}[Git project site]. Refer to commit history of
{seed-contribution}[asciidoc.rb] to view the initial contributions and
contributors.

The source code can now be found in the {sources}[Asciidoctor source
repository] on GitHub.

== Installation

NOTE: We're working hard to make Asciidoctor a drop-in replacement for
AsciiDoc. We're very close, with over 700 tests that ensure
compatibility. The march is on towards full compliance and beyond.

To install the gem:

 gem install asciidoctor

Or if you prefer bundler, add the asciidoctor gem to your Gemfile,

 source 'https://rubygems.org'
 gem 'asciidoctor'

then install it using bundler:

 bundle install

If you're running Fedora, you can install the gem using yum:

 sudo yum install rubygem-asciidoctor

The benefit of installing the gem via yum is that yum will also install
Ruby if it's not already on your machine.

== Usage

Asciidoctor has both a command line interface (CLI) and an API. The CLI
is a drop-in replacement for the +asciidoc.py+ command from the Python
implementation. The API is intended for integration with other software
projects and is suitable for server-side applications, such as Rails,
Sinatra and GitHub.

=== Command line interface (CLI)

After installing the +asciidoctor+ gem, the +asciidoctor+ commandline
interface should be available on your PATH. To invoke it, simply execute:

 asciidoctor <asciidoc_file>

This will use the built-in defaults for options and create a new file in
the same directory as the input file, with the same base name, but with
the .html extension.

There are many other options available and full help is provided via:

 asciidoctor --help

or in the http://asciidoctor.org/man/asciidoctor[man page].

There is also an +asciidoctor-safe+ command, which turns on safe mode by
default, preventing access to files outside the parent directory of the
source file. This mode is very similar to the safe mode of
+asciidoc.py+.

=== Ruby API

To use Asciidoctor in your application, you first need to require the
gem:

 require 'asciidoctor'

With that in place, you can start processing AsciiDoc documents.

.Loading a document
To parse a file into an +Asciidoctor::Document+ object:

 doc = Asciidoctor.load_file('your_file.asciidoc')

You can get information about the document:

 puts doc.doctitle
 puts doc.attributes

More than likely, you want to just render the document.

.Rendering files
To render a file containing AsciiDoc markup to HTML 5:

 Asciidoctor.render_file('your_file.asciidoc', :in_place => true)

The command will output to the file +your_file.html+ in the same
directory. You can render the file to DocBook 4.5 by setting the
+backend+ attribute to 'docbook':

 Asciidoctor.render_file('your_file.asciidoc', :in_place => true,
   :attributes => {'backend' => 'docbook'})

The command will output to the file +your_file.xml+ in the same
directory. (If you're on Linux, you can view the file using yelp).

.Rendering strings
To render an AsciiDoc-formatted string:

 puts Asciidoctor.render('*This* is it.')

When rendering a string, the header and footer are excluded by default
to make Asciidoctor consistent with other lightweight markup engines
like Markdown. If you want the header and footer, just enable it using
the +:header_footer+ option:

 puts Asciidoctor.render('*This* is it.', :header_footer => true)

Now you'll get a full HTML 5 file. As before, you can also produce
DocBook 4.5:

 puts Asciidoctor.render('*This* is it.', :header_footer => true,
   :attributes => {'backend' => 'docbook'})

If you don't like the output you see, you can change it. Any of it!

.Custom templates
Asciidoctor allows you to override the {templates}[built-in templates]
used to render almost any individual AsciiDoc element. If you provide a
directory of {tilt}[Tilt]-compatible templates, named in such a way that
Asciidoctor can figure out which template goes with which element,
Asciidoctor will use the templates in this directory instead of its
built-in templates for any elements for which it finds a matching
template. It will fallback to its default templates for everything else.

 puts Asciidoctor.render('*This* is it.', :header_footer => true,
   :template_dir => 'templates')

The Document and Section templates should begin with +document.+ and
+section.+, respectively. The file extension is used by Tilt to
determine which view framework it will use to use to render the
template. For instance, if you want to write the template in ERB, you'd
name these two templates +document.html.erb+ and +section.html.erb+. To
use Haml, you'd name them +document.html.haml+ and +section.html.haml+.

Templates for block elements, like a Paragraph or Sidebar, would begin
with +block_<style>.+. For instance, to override the default Paragraph
template with an ERB template, put a file named
+block_paragraph.html.erb+ in the template directory you pass to the
+Document+ constructor using the +:template_dir+ option.

For more usage examples, see the (massive) test suite.

== Differences from AsciiDoc

While Asciidoctor aims to be compliant with the AsciiDoc syntax, there
are some differences which are important to keep in mind. In some cases,
it's to enforce a rule we believe is too lax or ambiguous in AsciiDoc.
In other cases, it's a tradeoff for speed, smarter processing or a
feature we just haven't yet implemented. (You'll also notice that
Asciidoctor executes about 25x as fast as AsciiDoc).

Here are the known cases where Asciidoctor differs from AsciiDoc:

* Asciidoctor enables safe mode by default when using the API
  (+SafeMode::SECURE+)

* Asciidoctor safe mode is even more safe than AsciiDoc's safe mode

* Asciidoctor enforces symmetric block delimiters (the length of start
  and end delimiters for a block must match!)

* Section title underlines must be within 1 character of the length of
  the title (AsciiDoc allows an offset of 3)

* Asciidoctor's default HTML backend matches AsciiDoc's HTML 5 backend
  (whereas XHTML 1.1 is the default HTML backend in AsciiDoc)

* Asciidoctor adds viewport meta tag to +<head>+ to optimize mobile viewing

* Asciidoctor handles inline anchors more cleanly

** AsciiDoc adds an +<a>+ tag in the line and that markup gets caught in
   the generated id

** Asciidoctor promotes the id of the anchor as the section id

* Asciidoctor strips XML entities from the section title before
  generating the id (makes for cleaner section ids)

* Asciidoctor uses +<code>+ instead of +<span class="monospace">+ around
  inline literal text in the HTML backend

* Asciidoctor does not wrap email next to author name in header in
  angle brackets

* Asciidoctor allows email field to be a URL and renders it as such

* Asciidoctor is much more lenient about attribute list parsing (double
  quotes are rarely needed, though you may want to keep them for
  compatibility)

* Asciidoctor recognizes +opts+ as an alias for the +options+ attribute.

* Asciidoctor creates xref labels using the text from the linked section
  title when rendering HTML to match how DocBook works

* Asciidoctor allows commas to be used in xref labels, whereas AsciiDoc
  cuts off the label at the location of the first comma

* Asciidoctor removes indentation for non-literal paragraphs in a list
  item
+
NOTE: In general, Asciidoctor handles whitespace much more intelligently
+

* In Asciidoctor, a horizontal ruler can have attributes

* Asciidoctor wraps +<col>+ elements in +<colgroup>+ in tables

* Asciidoctor uses +<code>+ around content in monospaced table cells

* Asciidoctor skips over line comments in tables, whereas AsciiDoc doesn't

* Asciidoctor uses its own API rather than a command line invocation to
  handle table cells that have AsciiDoc content

* Asciidoctor supports resolving variables from parent document in table
  cells with AsciiDoc content

* AsciiDoc doesn't carry over the doctype attribute passed from the
  commandline when rendering AsciiDoc table cells, whereas Asciidoctor does

* Asciidoctor does not require commas between attributes with quoted
  values in a block attribute list

* Asciidoctor strips the file extension from the target image when
  generating alt text if no alt text is provided

* Asciidoctor reifies the toc in the header of the document instead of
  relying on JavaScript to create it

* Asciidoctor sets CSS class on toc element, read from the +toc-class+
  attribute; defaults to toc attribute name (+toc+ or +toc2+).

* Asciidoctor honors the id, title, role and levels attributes set on
  the toc macro.

* Asciidoctor does not output two TOCs with the same id.

* Asciidoctor is nice about using a section title syntax inside a
  delimited block by simply ignoring it (AsciiDoc issues warnings)

* Asciidoctor honors the alternate style name "discrete" for a floating
  title (i.e., +[discrete]+)

* Asciidoctor supports syntax highlighting of listing or literal blocks
  that have the "source" style out of the box

** Asciidoctor honors the source-highlighter values +coderay+ and
   +highlightjs+, using CodeRay or highlight.js, respectively

** Asciidoctor does not currently support Pygments for source
   highlighting

* Asciidoctor sets these additional intrinsic attributes

  +asciidoctor+::
    indicates Asciidoctor is being used; useful for conditional
    processing

  +asciidoctor-version+::
    indicates which version of Asciidoctor is in use

* Asciidoctor does not support deprecated tables (you don't want them
  anyway)

* Use can set the extension for icons using the +icontype+ attribute
  (AsciiDoc defaults to .png)

* AsciiDoc uses the +<blockquote>+ for the content and +<cite>+ tag for
  attribution title in the HTML output for quote blocks, requiring some
  additional styling to match AsciiDoc
+
 blockquote.content { padding: 0; margin; 0 }
 cite { color: navy; }
+

* Asciidoctor does not support the deprecated index term syntax (`++`
  and `+++`)

* Asciidoctor includes a modern default stylesheet based on Foundation.

* Asciidoctor links to, rather than embeds, the default stylesheet into
  the document by default (e.g., +linkcss+). To include the default
  stylesheet, you can either use the +copycss+ attribute to tell
  Asciidoctor to copy it to the output directory, or you can embed it
  into the document using the +linkcss!+ attribute. You can also provide
  your own stylesheet using the +stylesheet+ attribute.

* Asciidoctor introduces the +hardbreaks+ attribute, which inserts a
  line break character after each line of wrapped text

* Asciidoctor introduces the +idseparator+ attribute to customize the
  separator used in generated section ids (AsciiDoc hardcodes +_+)

* Asciidoctor does not support system evaluation macros

* Asciidoctor does not support displaying comments

* Asciidoctor properly calculates author initials if attribute reference
  is used in name

* Asciidoctor allows the author and revision attributes to be referenced
  in subsequent attribute entries in header (unlike AsciiDoc)

* Asciidoctor allows multiple authors to be defined, separated by
  semicolon. In DocBook backend, the authors are listed in an
  +<authorgroup>+ element.

* Asciidoctor allows the document id to be set using [[id]] above the
  document header (adds id attribute to +<body>+ tag)

* Assigning value to the +listing-caption+ attribute will enable
  automatic captions for listings (like examples, tables and figures)

* The +ifeval::[]+ macro is constrained for the strict purpose of
  comparing values of attributes

* The +include::[]+ macro is converted to a link to the target document
  when SafeMode is SECURE or greater (this makes for a friendly
  experience on GitHub)

* Asciidoctor supports up to 6 section levels (to cover all heading levels in
  HTML) whereas AsciiDoc stops at 5; note the 6 section level is only available
  using the single-line section title syntax

* Admonition block style is added to class of outer div in html5 backend
  in Asciidoctor

* Admonition block caption can be overridden in Asciidoctor using the
  +caption+ block attribute

* Asciidoctor will parse attributes in link macros if the
  +use-link-attrs+ attribute is set on the document.

If there's a difference you don't see in this list, check the {issues}[issue
tracker] to see if it's an outstanding feature, or file an issue to report the
difference.

== Contributing

In the spirit of {freesoftware}[free software], 'everyone' is encouraged to
help improve this project.

Here are some ways *you* can contribute:

* by using alpha, beta, and prerelease versions
* by reporting bugs
* by suggesting new features
* by writing or editing documentation
* by writing specifications
* by writing code -- 'No patch is too small.'
** fix typos
** add comments
** clean up inconsistent whitespace
** write tests!
* by refactoring code
* by fixing {issues}[issues]
* by reviewing patches

== Submitting an Issue

We use the {issues}[GitHub issue tracker] associated with this project
to track bugs and features. Before submitting a bug report or feature
request, check to make sure it hasn't already been submitted. When
submitting a bug report, please include a {gist}[Gist] that includes any
details that may help reproduce the bug, including your gem version,
Ruby version, and operating system.

Most importantly, since Asciidoctor is a text processor, reproducing
most bugs requires that we have some snippet of text on which
Asciidoctor exhibits the bad behavior.

An ideal bug report would include a pull request with failing specs.

== Submitting a Pull Request

. {fork}[Fork the repository].
. {branch}[Create a topic branch].
. Add tests for your unimplemented feature or bug fix.
. Run +bundle exec rake+.
If your tests pass, return to step 3.
. Implement your feature or bug fix.
. Run +bundle exec rake+.
If your tests fail, return to step 5.
. Add documentation for your feature or bug fix.
. If your changes are not 100% documented, go back to step 7.
. Add, commit, and push your changes.
. {pr}[Submit a pull request].

== Supported Ruby Versions

This library aims to support the following Ruby implementations:

* Ruby 1.8.7
* Ruby 1.9.3
* Ruby 2.0.0
* JRuby 1.7.2
* Rubinius 1.2.4

If something doesn't work on one of these interpreters, it should be
considered a bug.

If you would like this library to support another Ruby version, you may
volunteer to be a maintainer. Being a maintainer entails making sure all
tests run and pass on that implementation. When something breaks on your
implementation, you will be personally responsible for providing patches
in a timely fashion. If critical issues for a particular implementation
exist at the time of a major release, support for that Ruby version may
be dropped.

== Resources

Project home page:: {homepage}

Source repository:: {sources}

Issue tracker:: {issues}

Mailinglist / forum:: {forum}

GitHub organization:: {org}

== Authors

*Asciidoctor* was written by https://github.com/mojavelinux[Dan Allen],
https://github.com/erebor[Ryan Waldron],
https://github.com/lightguard[Jason Porter], https://github.com/nickh[Nick
Hengeveld] and {contributors}[other contributors].

*AsciiDoc* was written by Stuart Rackham and has received contributions
from many other individuals.

== Copyright

Copyright (C) 2012-2013 Dan Allen and Ryan Waldron. Free use of this
software is granted under the terms of the MIT License.

See the {license}[LICENSE] file for details.

// vim: tw=72