Readme.md - added Section for customization and notes

[biaweb2.git] / biawebutil.hpp

diff --git a/biawebutil.hpp b/biawebutil.hpp
index 36aa0df..279d394 100644 (file)
--- a/biawebutil.hpp
+++ b/biawebutil.hpp
@@ -1,10 +1,48 @@
 #ifndef __BIAWEBUTIL__
 #define __BIAWEBUTIL__
 #include <string>
+#include <fstream>
+
+// "discount" markdown library is a C library and hence requires to be wrapped in 
+// extern "C"
+extern "C" {
+    #include <mkdio.h>
+}
 
 // utility functions for Biaweb that don't fit into any class and can be used by 
 // any class
 namespace biaweb {
+    // load a string from file
+    std::string load_from_file (std::string filename) {
+        std::ifstream f (filename);
+        std::string r ((std::istreambuf_iterator<char> (f)),
+                        (std::istreambuf_iterator<char> ()));
+        return r;
+    }
+
+    // convert markdown
+    std::string convert_to_markdown (std::string str) {
+        // discount is a C library and it doesn't work well with C++ streams
+        // and there seems no way to get the output of any of these functions
+        // into an std::string. 
+        // the only option seems to be to write the output of the markdown()
+        // function to a temporary working file and then read it back into C++ 
+        // with the normal std::ifstream and feed it into the std::string 
+        // till a cleaner solution can be found. 
+        MMIOT *doc;
+        doc = mkd_string (str.c_str(), str.size(), 0);
+        char tempfile[20];
+        strcpy (tempfile, "/tmp/biawebXXXXXX");
+        int fd = mkstemp (tempfile);
+        FILE *f = fdopen (fd, "w");
+        markdown (doc, f, 0);
+        fclose (f);
+        std::string tmpl = load_from_file (tempfile);
+        mkd_cleanup (doc);
+        remove (tempfile);
+        return tmpl;
+    }
+
     // convert a document title to a file title - strip out the non-alpha
     // chars and spaces
     std::string convert_title (std::string title)