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Which tools and technologies build the Stack Exchange Network?

Precisely which type of markdown (afaik there are quite a few variants) and editor (the one I am typing in right now) is Stack Overflow using?

I understand, there must be a JavaScript realtime implementation (which shows me the preview below). Where could I get that?

I hope there's also a PHP implementation, so I can turn markdown into HTML in the backend?

Ultimately I want to turn a very proprietary wordpress theme into being markdown based, since I find this the exact right balance between complexity and ease of use. Many 'wiki syntaxes' are in my opinion off to one side or the other.

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marked as duplicate by Cody Gray, Diago, Anna Lear Jun 5 '12 at 21:28


The de facto standard Markdown library for PHP is PHP Markdown. –  user149432 May 21 '12 at 8:54

2 Answers 2

up vote 4 down vote accepted

You're looking for:

  • MarkdownSharp - C# Markdown processor
  • pagedown - A JavaScript Markdown converter and editor
  • prettify - A Javascript module and CSS file that allows syntax highlighting of source code snippets in an html page.

You can find the full supported Markdown syntax in the editing help page.

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Don't forget Jeff's HTML Sanitizer. –  Henrik Ripa May 21 '12 at 8:26
Thank you. I also found something at michelf.com/projects/php-markdown (not yet tested about compatibility differences) –  Fronker May 21 '12 at 12:22

StackExchange uses the MarkdownSharp implementation, written in C#. Converting it to php would likely be quite the task.

See also: Which tools and technologies build the Stack Exchange Network?

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