adding \ before <tag> should render it as "<tag>" and not parse as html

[ghost]

source code

how it should be

how it is now

/rel marked#884

[tivie]

That's actually a non standard implementation. But since GFM (github) also uses it, we will implement it as a feature.

[ghost]

what should be happening here is \ before any control-symbol turns it to a simple char, making < to an <, and since tag> is not a valid html – parser should leave it as text like it is with other things, like \# H1

test:

regular H1

# escaped H1

[tivie]

Yes, I know. But, according to the markdown spec, escaping with backslash is reserved for characters that have special meaning in markdown context, not HTML. < is a "normal" character to markdown, it has no special meaning.
In markdown, escaping with backslash tells the parser that it should ignore the character and leave it as it is. For example, \*\*foo\*\* will be parsed as **foo** and not <strong>foo</strong>.

There's also the problem with unintended escapes. Example: 'This sentence uses a backslash <strong>followed by a strong tag`

However, since GFM supports escaping html entities, this will be implemented as an option.

[ghost]

turns out, github has escape for EVERY punctuation symbol: https://github.github.com/gfm/#example-296

likely due to regex smth

[tivie]

Yeah, they changed it a bit in favor of commonmark.