List lines with a comment before a markdown link are not properly rendered

[Iiridayn]

MRE:

$parsedown = new Parsedown();
echo $parsedown->text("- <!-- test -->[foo](bar)");

Expected:

<ul>
<li><!-- test --><a href="bar">foo</a></li>
</ul>

Got:

<ul>
<li>
<!-- test -->[foo](bar)
</li>
</ul>

[taufik-nurrohman]

It is what it should be, based on the CommonMark specification. Because it is treated as HTML block type 2:

https://spec.commonmark.org/0.31.2#example-177

[Iiridayn]

You have linked me a specification which this converter conforms to. Although I feel the decisions made by the specification violate the principle of least astonishment, it is probably not worth the effort to pursue this further. Thank you for your clear and concise answer.

Would you happen to know if I can cleanly get the output desired? My new understanding is that newlines end both the "HTML block type 2" and the list item, and I have just finished converting all of my user-generated HTML to markdown as a more user-friendly (and easier to secure) alternative, with a few small issues like this one. (For example, I had to subclass Parsedown to support HTML comments in safe mode since I understand Markdown doesn't support comments, and the existing user HTML includes a number of valuable comments).

[taufik-nurrohman]

Try escaping (untested):

- \<!-- test --\>[foo](bar)

[Iiridayn]

Thank you - - \<!-- test -->[foo](bar) almost works, gives me <li>\<!-- test --><a href="bar">foo</a></li>. Just needs to strip the escape character now, but I already opened #903 about a related issue w/escape characters.