Reactify Markdown

A MarkdownIt plugin and corresponding React component that makes the renderer produce React Nodes instead of a string.

Every React/Markdown package I've found has rendered the source as text and then wrapped it in <div dangerouslySetInnerHTML={{__html: source}} />. This prevents you from creating rules and plugins that return controlled React components. It also produces a <div>, a block-level element, which can have undesired effects on layout.

Using custom rules that set token.content to a ReactNode allows you to render React components inline. As the env parameter of render() can pass arbitrary information, you can take advantage of this and pass component props and state into the markdown rendering itself.

Installation

npm install --save reactify-markdown react markdown-it

React and markdown-it are required peer dependencies.

Usage

Using just the plugin

import React from 'react';
import ReactDOM from 'react-dom';
import MarkdownIt from 'markdown-it';
import { RenderReactPlugin } from 'reactify-markdown';
 
const md = MarkdownIt();
md.use(RenderReactPlugin);
 
function MyComponent({ myMarkdownString }) { 
    return (<div>
        Here's my markdown!
        {md.render(myMarkdownString)}
    </div>);
}
 
ReactDOM.render(
    <MyComponent myMarkdownString="# Hello #" />, 
    document.getElementById('root')
);

Produces:

<div>
    Here's my markdown!
    <h1>Hello</h1>
</div>

With a custom rule

import React from 'react';
import ReactDOM from 'react-dom';
import MarkdownIt from 'markdown-it';
import mdiRegex from 'markdown-it-regex';
import { RenderReactPlugin } from 'reactify-markdown';
 
const md = MarkdownIt();
md.use(RenderReactPlugin);
md.use(mdiRegex, {
    name: 'myRule',
    regex: /:(\w+):/,
    replace: m => <i>{m}</i>
});
 
function MyComponent({ myMarkdownString }) { 
    return md.render(myMarkdownString);
}
 
ReactDOM.render(
    <MyComponent myMarkdownString="Hay :needle: stack" />, 
    document.getElementById('root')
);

Produces:

<p>
    Hay <i>needle</i> stack
</p>

Using the React Component

The same outputs as above can be produced using:

import React from 'react';
import ReactDOM from 'react-dom';
import ReactifyMarkdown from 'reactify-markdown';
 
ReactDOM.render(
    <div>
        Here's my markdown!
        <ReactifyMarkdown>
            # Hello #
        </ReactifyMarkdown>
    </div>,
    document.getElementById('root')
);

With a custom rule

import React from 'react';
import ReactDOM from 'react-dom';
import mdiRegex from 'markdown-it-regex';
import ReactifyMarkdown from 'reactify-markdown';
 
const myRule = [
    mdiRegex, 
    {
        name: 'myRule',
        regex: /:(\w+):/,
        replace: m => <i>{m}</i>
    }
];
 
ReactDOM.render(
    <ReactifyMarkdown plugins={[myRule]}>Hay :needle: stack</ReactifyMarkdown>,
    document.getElementById('root')
);

<ReactifyMarkdown> props

• children: string - The markdown source string to be parsed and rendered.
• enable?: string | string[] - Optional rule name or list of rule names to enable.
• disable?: string | string[] - Optional rule name or list of rule names to disable.
• env?: any - Arbitrary data that is passed into the renderer's rules.
• dontStripIndent?: boolean (default false) - By default, the component will strip preceding spaces via strip-indent. Set this flag to disable this behavior.
• md?: MarkdownIt - A preconfigured markdown it instance. If md is set, all of the following values are ignored.
• options?: MarkdownIt.Options - See https://markdown-it.github.io/markdown-it/#MarkdownIt.new.
• plugins?: Plugin[] - A list of plugins to apply to the markdown instance. Each element is passed directly as arguments to md.use(). See https://markdown-it.github.io/markdown-it/#MarkdownIt.use.
• presetName?: 'commonmark' | 'zero' | 'default' (default 'default') - See https://markdown-it.github.io/markdown-it/#MarkdownIt.new.

TODO

• Better documentation.
• Allow mixed strings/elements children in the <ReactifyMarkdown> component.
• Better test coverage.