
    Architecture: NDMarkup
_______________________________________________________________________________

A markup format used by the parser, both internally and in <NaturalDocs::Parser::ParsedTopic> objects.  Text formatted in
NDMarkup will only have the tags documented below.


About: Top-Level Tags

   All content will be surrounded by one of the top-level tags.  These tags will not appear within each other.

   <p></p>         - Surrounds a paragraph.  Paragraph breaks will replace double line breaks, and single line breaks will
                            be removed completely.

   <code></code>   - Surrounds code or text diagrams that should appear literally in the output.

   <h></h>         - Surrounds a heading.

   <ul></ul>       - Surrounds a bulleted (unordered) list.
   <dl></dl>       - Surrounds a description list, which is what you are reading.

   <img mode="inline" target="" original=""> - An inline image.  Target contains the image target, and original contains the
                                                                    original text in case it doesn't resolve.


About: List Item Tags

   These tags will only appear within their respective lists.

   <li></li>       - Surrounds a bulleted list item.
   <de></de>   - Surrounds a description list entry, which is the left side.  It will always be followed by a description list
                         description.
   <ds></ds>   - Surrounds a description list symbol.  This is the same as a description list entry, except that the content
                         is also a referenceable symbol.  This occurs when inside a list topic.  This tag will always
                         be followed by a description list description.
   <dd></dd>   - Surrounds a description list description, which is the right side.  It will always be preceded by a description
                         list entry or symbol.

About: Text Tags

   These tags will only appear in paragraphs, headings, or description list descriptions.

   <b></b>         - Bold
   <i></i>           - Italics
   <u></u>         - Underline

   <link target="" name="" original=""> - Surrounds a potential link to a symbol; potential because the target is not guaranteed to
                                                            exist.  This tag merely designates an attempted link.  Target is what is attempting to be
                                                            linked to, name is the text that should appear for a successful link, and original is the
                                                            original text in case the link doesn't resolve.

   <url target="" name="">                   - An external link.  There's no need for an original attribute because it will always be
                                                             turned into an actual link.
   <email target="" name="">               - A link to an e-mail address.

   <img mode="link" target="" original=""> - An image link.  Target contains the image target, and original contains the original
                                                                 text in case it doesn't resolve.


About: Amp Chars

   These are the only amp chars supported, and will appear everywhere.  Every other character will appear as is.

   &amp;    - The ampersand &.
   &quot;    - The double quote ".
   &lt;        - The less than sign <.
   &gt;       - The greater than sign >.

About: Tabs

    NDMarkup will not contain tab characters, only spaces.  Any tab characters appearing in the source files will be
    expanded/replaced as necessary.


About: General Tag Properties

   Since the tags are generated, they will always have the following properties, which will make pattern matching much
   easier.

   - Tags and amp chars will always be in all lowercase.
   - Properties will appear exactly as documented here.  They will be in all lowercase, in the documented order, and will have no
     extraneous whitespace.  Anything appearing in the properties will have amp chars.
   - All code is valid, meaning tags will always be closed, <li>s will only appear within <ul>s, etc.

   So, for example, you can match description list entries with /<de>(.+?)<\/de>/ and $1 will be the text.  No surprises or
   gotchas.  No need for sophisticated parsing routines.

   Remember that for symbol definitions, the text should appear as is, but internally (such as for the anchor) they need to
   be passed through <NaturalDocs::SymbolTable->Defines()> so that the output file is just as tolerant as
   <NaturalDocs::SymbolTable>.
