Special characters in GitHub wiki page names - AndyGlew/Test-GitHub-stuff GitHub Wiki

I like having special characters and wiki page names.

Why? Basically because I like using natural notations in page titles- or at least links.

Page Name vs URL Encoded (with Extensions) vs Link Transformations

By "Page Name" I mean the title that typically appears at the top of a wiki page.

Also, the page name that is placed within wiki compact links, like Confluence's [Square] or WacoWiki's (([double]round bracket links)) or TracWiki's [wiki:link]. double square bracket links are the most common, but unfortunately this GitHub wiki doesn't have a way of escaping double square brackets - although it does in Markdown in the repo.

By "URL encoded" I mean the name that is put in an HTTP or HTTPS link. it may contain standard URL encodings like %20 for space; in addition, it may contain mappings for readability like mapping space to underscore ( MediaWiki) or - (GitHub wiki), since %20 and other hex encodings can be hard to read. it is pleasant if the URL itself is readable, and possibly editable in simple ways.

Ideally these mappings are reversible. (Counterexample: this GitHub wiki maps spaces to hyphens -, and reverse maps - to space. causing problems if you want to have a space in a page title.)

Flexible compact links are what calls FreeLinks: almost...

First, not all wikis support free links, with arbitrary syntax. this GitHub wiki is a classic bad example

Second, I like wikis that represent wiki pages as files. However, this means that there must also be a mapping between the page title and the file name.

E.g. for this GitHub wiki, I am editing it in cygwin on Windows. so, although the GitHub wiki allows colons in page titles, and also in the filenames when a git clone of the wiki repo is made, Windows does not allow colons in filenames.

Also, GitHub supports multiple markdown syntaxes (e.g. Markdown, MediaWiki, AsciiDoc), and there are differences between the rendering of Markdown in the repo and the corresponding wiki.

This pagew is mediawiki.

See also Special-characters-in-GitHub-wiki-page-names-GFMarkdown.

  • AFAICT GitHub's Markdown and Mediawiki double square bracket links treat special characters the same way.
  * TBD: rest ewxhaustively

examples of why I like special characters in wiki page names

e.g. I like using Q/A format - yes, even in page names

e.g. when the standard notation or terminology uses slashes, I would like to use slash in the page name
  • [LL/SC]
  • [LL/SC]
  • [either/or]
e.g. I like i=using interval notation using [] and ()
  • closed: [lwb,upb]
  • open: (lwb,ubp)
  • half-open: [lwb,lwb+size)
    • ]which I often abbreviate as [lwb,+size)]or [lwb/+size)
    • ]this is the standard interval used for block operations like memcopy and capabilities such as in Intel MPX
e.g. I like using Cartesian alternatives
  • [{a,b}{1,2}]
e.g. I might like to put regexps in a page title
  • [all]
  1. or at least auto URL encode in links
e.g. enter [special-question?-:-/]
  • generate URL encoded page name [special-%3F-%3F]
== Tests of FreeLinks - special characters in internal links

OK: character appears in link and title and URL

%XX: character appears in page title and link and is ASCII hex encoded in URL

FAIL-SPACED: broken. not reversible. typically maps to - in URL and a blank space in page title

GitHub markdown onrepo and wiki differ

See https://stackoverflow.com/questions/16027723/how-to-escape-backslash-bracket-in-markdown

⚠️ **GitHub.com Fallback** ⚠️