` tags in the HTML output. For example, this input:\n\n * Bird\n * Magic\n\nwill turn into:\n\n
\n\n\nIt's worth noting that it's possible to trigger an ordered list by\naccident, by writing something like this:\n\n 1986. What a great season.\n\nIn other words, a *number-period-space* sequence at the beginning of a\nline. To avoid this, you can backslash-escape the period:\n\n 1986\\. What a great season.\n\n\n\nCode Blocks
\n\nPre-formatted code blocks are used for writing about programming or\nmarkup source code. Rather than forming normal paragraphs, the lines\nof a code block are interpreted literally. Markdown wraps a code block\nin both `` and `` tags.\n\nTo produce a code block in Markdown, simply indent every line of the\nblock by at least 4 spaces or 1 tab. For example, given this input:\n\n This is a normal paragraph:\n\n This is a code block.\n\nMarkdown will generate:\n\n This is a normal paragraph:
\n\n This is a code block.\n
\n\nOne level of indentation -- 4 spaces or 1 tab -- is removed from each\nline of the code block. For example, this:\n\n Here is an example of AppleScript:\n\n tell application \"Foo\"\n beep\n end tell\n\nwill turn into:\n\n Here is an example of AppleScript:
\n\n tell application \"Foo\"\n beep\n end tell\n
\n\nA code block continues until it reaches a line that is not indented\n(or the end of the article).\n\nWithin a code block, ampersands (`&`) and angle brackets (`<` and `>`)\nare automatically converted into HTML entities. This makes it very\neasy to include example HTML source code using Markdown -- just paste\nit and indent it, and Markdown will handle the hassle of encoding the\nampersands and angle brackets. For example, this:\n\n \n\nwill turn into:\n\n <div class=\"footer\">\n © 2004 Foo Corporation\n </div>\n
\n\nRegular Markdown syntax is not processed within code blocks. E.g.,\nasterisks are just literal asterisks within a code block. This means\nit's also easy to use Markdown to write about Markdown's own syntax.\n\n\n\nHorizontal Rules
\n\nYou can produce a horizontal rule tag (`
`) by placing three or\nmore hyphens, asterisks, or underscores on a line by themselves. If you\nwish, you may use spaces between the hyphens or asterisks. Each of the\nfollowing lines will produce a horizontal rule:\n\n * * *\n\n ***\n\n *****\n\n - - -\n\n ---------------------------------------\n\n\n* * *\n\nSpan Elements
\n\nLinks
\n\nMarkdown supports two style of links: *inline* and *reference*.\n\nIn both styles, the link text is delimited by [square brackets].\n\nTo create an inline link, use a set of regular parentheses immediately\nafter the link text's closing square bracket. Inside the parentheses,\nput the URL where you want the link to point, along with an *optional*\ntitle for the link, surrounded in quotes. For example:\n\n This is [an example](http://example.com/ \"Title\") inline link.\n\n [This link](http://example.net/) has no title attribute.\n\nWill produce:\n\n This is \n an example inline link.
\n\n This link has no\n title attribute.
\n\nIf you're referring to a local resource on the same server, you can\nuse relative paths:\n\n See my [About](/about/) page for details.\n\nReference-style links use a second set of square brackets, inside\nwhich you place a label of your choosing to identify the link:\n\n This is [an example][id] reference-style link.\n\nYou can optionally use a space to separate the sets of brackets:\n\n This is [an example] [id] reference-style link.\n\nThen, anywhere in the document, you define your link label like this,\non a line by itself:\n\n [id]: http://example.com/ \"Optional Title Here\"\n\nThat is:\n\n* Square brackets containing the link identifier (optionally\n indented from the left margin using up to three spaces);\n* followed by a colon;\n* followed by one or more spaces (or tabs);\n* followed by the URL for the link;\n* optionally followed by a title attribute for the link, enclosed\n in double or single quotes, or enclosed in parentheses.\n\nThe following three link definitions are equivalent:\n\n [foo]: http://example.com/ \"Optional Title Here\"\n [foo]: http://example.com/ 'Optional Title Here'\n [foo]: http://example.com/ (Optional Title Here)\n\n**Note:** There is a known bug in Markdown.pl 1.0.1 which prevents\nsingle quotes from being used to delimit link titles.\n\nThe link URL may, optionally, be surrounded by angle brackets:\n\n [id]: \"Optional Title Here\"\n\nYou can put the title attribute on the next line and use extra spaces\nor tabs for padding, which tends to look better with longer URLs:\n\n [id]: http://example.com/longish/path/to/resource/here\n \"Optional Title Here\"\n\nLink definitions are only used for creating links during Markdown\nprocessing, and are stripped from your document in the HTML output.\n\nLink definition names may consist of letters, numbers, spaces, and\npunctuation -- but they are *not* case sensitive. E.g. these two\nlinks:\n\n [link text][a]\n [link text][A]\n\nare equivalent.\n\nThe *implicit link name* shortcut allows you to omit the name of the\nlink, in which case the link text itself is used as the name.\nJust use an empty set of square brackets -- e.g., to link the word\n\"Google\" to the google.com web site, you could simply write:\n\n [Google][]\n\nAnd then define the link:\n\n [Google]: http://google.com/\n\nBecause link names may contain spaces, this shortcut even works for\nmultiple words in the link text:\n\n Visit [Daring Fireball][] for more information.\n\nAnd then define the link:\n\n [Daring Fireball]: http://daringfireball.net/\n\nLink definitions can be placed anywhere in your Markdown document. I\ntend to put them immediately after each paragraph in which they're\nused, but if you want, you can put them all at the end of your\ndocument, sort of like footnotes.\n\nHere's an example of reference links in action:\n\n I get 10 times more traffic from [Google] [1] than from\n [Yahoo] [2] or [MSN] [3].\n\n [1]: http://google.com/ \"Google\"\n [2]: http://search.yahoo.com/ \"Yahoo Search\"\n [3]: http://search.msn.com/ \"MSN Search\"\n\nUsing the implicit link name shortcut, you could instead write:\n\n I get 10 times more traffic from [Google][] than from\n [Yahoo][] or [MSN][].\n\n [google]: http://google.com/ \"Google\"\n [yahoo]: http://search.yahoo.com/ \"Yahoo Search\"\n [msn]: http://search.msn.com/ \"MSN Search\"\n\nBoth of the above examples will produce the following HTML output:\n\n I get 10 times more traffic from Google than from\n Yahoo\n or MSN.
\n\nFor comparison, here is the same paragraph written using\nMarkdown's inline link style:\n\n I get 10 times more traffic from [Google](http://google.com/ \"Google\")\n than from [Yahoo](http://search.yahoo.com/ \"Yahoo Search\") or\n [MSN](http://search.msn.com/ \"MSN Search\").\n\nThe point of reference-style links is not that they're easier to\nwrite. The point is that with reference-style links, your document\nsource is vastly more readable. Compare the above examples: using\nreference-style links, the paragraph itself is only 81 characters\nlong; with inline-style links, it's 176 characters; and as raw HTML,\nit's 234 characters. In the raw HTML, there's more markup than there\nis text.\n\nWith Markdown's reference-style links, a source document much more\nclosely resembles the final output, as rendered in a browser. By\nallowing you to move the markup-related metadata out of the paragraph,\nyou can add links without interrupting the narrative flow of your\nprose.\n\n\nEmphasis
\n\nMarkdown treats asterisks (`*`) and underscores (`_`) as indicators of\nemphasis. Text wrapped with one `*` or `_` will be wrapped with an\nHTML `` tag; double `*`'s or `_`'s will be wrapped with an HTML\n`` tag. E.g., this input:\n\n *single asterisks*\n\n _single underscores_\n\n **double asterisks**\n\n __double underscores__\n\nwill produce:\n\n single asterisks\n\n single underscores\n\n double asterisks\n\n double underscores\n\nYou can use whichever style you prefer; the lone restriction is that\nthe same character must be used to open and close an emphasis span.\n\nEmphasis can be used in the middle of a word:\n\n un*frigging*believable\n\nBut if you surround an `*` or `_` with spaces, it'll be treated as a\nliteral asterisk or underscore.\n\nTo produce a literal asterisk or underscore at a position where it\nwould otherwise be used as an emphasis delimiter, you can backslash\nescape it:\n\n \\*this text is surrounded by literal asterisks\\*\n\n\n\nCode
\n\nTo indicate a span of code, wrap it with backtick quotes (`` ` ``).\nUnlike a pre-formatted code block, a code span indicates code within a\nnormal paragraph. For example:\n\n Use the `printf()` function.\n\nwill produce:\n\n Use the printf() function.
\n\nTo include a literal backtick character within a code span, you can use\nmultiple backticks as the opening and closing delimiters:\n\n ``There is a literal backtick (`) here.``\n\nwhich will produce this:\n\n There is a literal backtick (`) here.
\n\nThe backtick delimiters surrounding a code span may include spaces --\none after the opening, one before the closing. This allows you to place\nliteral backtick characters at the beginning or end of a code span:\n\n A single backtick in a code span: `` ` ``\n\n A backtick-delimited string in a code span: `` `foo` ``\n\nwill produce:\n\n A single backtick in a code span: `
\n\n A backtick-delimited string in a code span: `foo`
\n\nWith a code span, ampersands and angle brackets are encoded as HTML\nentities automatically, which makes it easy to include example HTML\ntags. Markdown will turn this:\n\n Please don't use any `