[Python-markdown-discuss] processors as functions

[Yuri T. <qar...@gm...>]

Now that we are changing so much, I want to propose a change that has
been on my mind for quite some time.  Back in the day I made a
decision to implement all processors as classes.  Since then I've been
thinking that perhaps implementing them simply as functions would make
things a lot easier and intuitive.  It may make some complicated cases
a little more complicated, but will simplify the simple cases, which
would make it easier for people to write simple extensions.

For instance, we would have

	def handleFootnotePattern(md, match) :
		sup = etree.Element("sup")
		a = etree.SubElement(sup, "a")
		id = m.group(2)
		sup.set('id', md.footnotes.makeFootnoteRefId(id))
		a.set('href', '#' + md.footnotes.makeFootnoteId(id))
		a.set('rel', 'footnote')
		a.text = str(md.footnotes.footnotes.index(id) + 1)
		return sup

instead of:

	class FootnotePattern(markdown.Pattern):
		""" InlinePattern for footnote markers in a document's body text. """

		def __init__(self, pattern, footnotes):
		    markdown.Pattern.__init__(self, pattern)
		    self.footnotes = footnotes

		def handleMatch(self, m):
		    sup = etree.Element("sup")
		    a = etree.SubElement(sup, "a")
		    id = m.group(2)
		    sup.set('id', self.footnotes.makeFootnoteRefId(id))
		    a.set('href', '#' + self.footnotes.makeFootnoteId(id))
		    a.set('rel', 'footnote')
		    a.text = str(self.footnotes.footnotes.index(id) + 1)
		    return sup

and then:

	md.inlinePatterns.add("footnote",
                          (FOOTNOTE_RE, handleFootnotePattern), "<reference")

instead of:

	md.inlinePatterns.add("footnote",
                          FootnotePattern(FOOTNOTE_RE, self), "<reference")

If we do this, I suggest that we do this for _all_ types of
processors.  I don't think this would be too complicated to implement.

 - yuri

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