Overview

This is a small personal project to extend the functionality of markdown.

I would like to write the compiler in Rust.

It would take a file from a format, like text.cd and compile it straight to text.md. The text.cd file would contain raw markdown and variables sprinkled throughout that could be referenced later throughout the file.

For example:

This is a line of markdown

@#var_name = this holds markdown information

or

@#var_tex = $$This is a KaTeX math equation$$

...

var_name output: @var_name

var_tex output: @var_tex

This is gonna take some knowledge of how compilers work. A bit of parsing knowledge as well. We may even be able to use flex for this 🤷. May be more fun to write it ourselves tho.

Why

I take notes with markdown and render them using vscode's renderer. vscode's renderer supports inline KaTeX and having a way to shortcut parts or entirety of equations would be nice

Use of Rust

Rust is fast and fun (in my opinion) to program in. It has a learning curve tho so don't be hesitant to ask questions.

We will probably read the file in a string and run the operations on it like that. This "compiler" might just be one big string manipulation program lol.

Other notes

I wonder if basic editor markdown highlighting could be used for .cd files. If not, this would mean creating our own language server so it looks nice in the editor.