commonmark / commonmark/cmark

Repeated CommonMark parsing and rendering can converge quite slowly

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Dominant language
C
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Description

I don't know whether there's a bug here but perhaps it's interesting:

$ loop() {
> while [ "$x" != "$x1" ] ; do
>   echo "$x" ; x1="$x" ; x=$(echo "$x" | cmark -t commonmark)
> done
> }

$ x='x **0*+*=***' ; loop
x **0*+*=***
x **0*+*=**\*
x **0*+\*=*\*\*
x \**0*+\*=\*\*\*

$ x='x __?__0_}__' ; loop
x __?__0_}__
x \_*?**0*}**
x \_\*?**0*}*\*
x \_\*?\**0*}\*\*

At least it does converge.

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Research direction

Start by reproducing the two shell-loop examples with the cmark -t commonmark entry point. Inspect the parsing and rendering behavior involved in repeated CommonMark conversion, and determine whether the slow convergence is expected or indicates a bug. Done means the behavior is explained and, if needed, covered by an appropriate regression test.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
c
Domain
cli
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
25/100

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