SwiftMarkdownParser Usage Guide

Complete reference for parsing Markdown and working with the AST.

Basic Usage

import SwiftMarkdownParser

// Create parser
let parser = SwiftMarkdownParser()

// Parse to AST
let ast = try await parser.parseToAST("# Hello **World**!")

// Parse directly to HTML
let html = try await parser.parseToHTML("# Hello **World**!")

Configuration

let config = SwiftMarkdownParser.Configuration(
    enableGFMExtensions: true,     // Tables, task lists, strikethrough
    strictMode: false,             // Relaxed parsing
    maxNestingDepth: 100,         // Recursion limit
    trackSourceLocations: false,   // Debug info
    maxParsingTime: 30.0          // Timeout in seconds
)

let parser = SwiftMarkdownParser(configuration: config)

AST Structure

The parser generates a hierarchical AST with these main node types:

Common Nodes

• AST.DocumentNode - Root document node
• AST.HeadingNode - Headings (# ## ###)
• AST.ParagraphNode - Text paragraphs
• AST.TextNode - Plain text content
• AST.EmphasisNode - italic text
• AST.StrongEmphasisNode - bold text
• AST.LinkNode - text links
• AST.ImageNode - images
• AST.CodeBlockNode - code blocks
• AST.InlineCodeNode - code spans
• AST.ListNode - Ordered/unordered lists
• AST.ListItemNode - List items
• AST.BlockQuoteNode - > blockquotes

GFM Extension Nodes

• AST.GFMTableNode - Pipe-separated tables
• AST.GFMTableRowNode - Table rows
• AST.GFMTableCellNode - Table cells
• AST.GFMTaskListItemNode - [x] task lists
• AST.GFMStrikethroughNode - strikethrough

Working with AST

let parser = SwiftMarkdownParser()
let ast = try await parser.parseToAST(markdown)

func analyzeDocument(_ node: ASTNode) {
    switch node {
    case let heading as AST.HeadingNode:
        print("Heading level \(heading.level)")
    case let link as AST.LinkNode:
        print("Link: \(link.url)")
    case let codeBlock as AST.CodeBlockNode:
        print("Code: \(codeBlock.language ?? "plain")")
    case let table as AST.GFMTableNode:
        print("Table: \(table.rows.count) rows")
    default:
        break
    }
    
    // Process children recursively
    for child in node.children {
        analyzeDocument(child)
    }
}

analyzeDocument(ast)

Error Handling

do {
    let ast = try await parser.parseToAST(markdown)
} catch MarkdownParsingError.invalidInput(let message) {
    print("Invalid input: \(message)")
} catch MarkdownParsingError.tokenizationFailed(let message) {
    print("Tokenization failed: \(message)")
} catch {
    print("Parsing failed: \(error)")
}

Performance Tips

• Use default configuration for most cases
• Increase maxParsingTime only for very large documents
• Set trackSourceLocations: false for better performance
• Consider parsing to AST once and rendering multiple times