GFM Support for Task Lists (feature request)

[tajmone]

Pandoc doesn't currently (v1.19) support GitHub Flavored Markdown's Task Lists.

If I use them in a markdown document, likes this:

- [ ] Mercury
- [x] Venus
- [x] Earth (Orbit/Moon)

and then I use pandoc to clean up the markdown source:

pandoc -f markdown_github -t markdown_github

the file gets cleaned up, except for the Task List, which gets corrupted by escaping the brackets:

-   \[ \] Mercury
-   \[x\] Venus
-   \[x\] Earth (Orbit/Moon)

That's a pity. Pandoc is a great tool for cleaning up markdown source files (especially with --smart --wrap=none --normalize options): you get properly aligned tables, a standard syntax (where multiple syntaxes are possible), normalization of extra whitespaces, etc. -- all of which is not only good for the eye, but also in Git controlled projects, because it reduces diffing nightmares and false positives in status changes.

But right now, this can't be used on GFM docs which make use of Tasks List — else they break up.

Tasks Lists being part of the GFM standard, they ought be implemented in pandoc's markdown_github.

[jgm]

Dup of #3051 - please add anything there that you think is missing.

[tajmone]

Sorry, I had searched the Issues for "task lists" and thought it wasn't raised before! Mea culpa.