Zigdown: Markdown parser in Zig

Inspired by Glow, the goal is to create a simple terminal-based Markdown renderer just for fun.

[!NOTE] This is still a WIP, but it can currently render some basic Markdown files nicely to the console, or to HTML!

Goals

My goal is to create basically a clone of mdcat, but in Zig, and my own implementation (because, again, for fun).

• Headers and basic text formatting
• Quote blocks
• Code blocks (mostly done)
• Unordered lists
• Ordered lists
• Task lists
• Tables
• Links
• Images (basic)
• Images (rendered to the console using the Kitty graphics protocol
• Code blocks with syntax highlighting
• NeoVim integration (w/o images)
• NeoVim integration (w/ images)

Usage

The current version of Zig this code compiles with is 0.12.0-dev.2341.

zig build run -- -c test/sample.md
zig build -l # List build options
zig build -Dtarget=x86_64-linux-musl # Compile for x86-64 Linux using statically-linked MUSL libC

zig build will create a zigdown binary at zig-out/bin/zigdown. Add -Doptimize=ReleaseSafe to enable optimizations while keeping safety checks and backtraces upon errors.

Status

Nearly complete! A few bugs remaining, plus some general cleanup required, but the basics are largely implemented.

Once the basics are polished, the next steps will be to improve the rendering options, enable image rendering, and work on advanced features like info boxes, task lists, tables, and more.