My Two Cents

A blogging site from a hacker.

Markdown Blogging With Python Flask

Introduction

Flask is a popular lightweight Python web MVC framework. Compared to Django, Flask based projects are usually simpler to implement and easier to maintain. Flask is BSD licensed and developed by Pocono team.

This tutorial shows how to use Flask and how to integrate a Markdown parser/render into Flask.

Implementation

Flask based project has no file structure requirements. Python programs, view templates and static files such as javascript files, stylesheets and images can be organized freely. Here are the steps to implement it.

Create a project folder

mkdir pyblog

Install Prerequisites

pip install Flask
pip install Jinja2
pip install Flask-Misaka

Initiate the blogging program

Create a python file namely blog.py. The code below gives an example to use Flask and view templates. index.html is a Jinja2 template. The full code is shown in the appendix.

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11

from flask import Flask
from flask import render_template

app = Flask(__name__, template_folder="views")

@app.route("/")
def index():
    return render_template('index.html')

if __name__ == "__main__":
    app.run(debug=True)

Run this project

Running the project is straightforward like executing a normal python script.

python blog.py

Integrate Markdown Renderer with Blogging Platform

Flask-Misaka is a project integrate Misaka with Flask. Misaka is a python binding for Sundown, which is a Markdown processing library in C.

The code below shows how Flask-Misaka is integrated into Flask. After app is initialized by Flask, wrap app by Misaka: Misaka(app).

1
2
3
4

from flask.ext.misaka import Misaka

app = Flask(__name, template_folder="views")
Misaka(app)

After app is initialized, markdown can be used in jinja2 templates. The code below shows text is rendered by markdown.

1

{{ text|markdown }}

The markdown content is written in readme.md, which is rendered into a web page. The code below opens the file and stores the text into content, which is rendered in the template.

1
2
3
4
5
6

content = ""
with open("readme.md", "r") as f:
  content = f.read()

def index():
  return render_template("index.html", text = content)

Conclusion

This tutorial introduces Flask and Flask-Misaka, which integrates Markdown into web framework. The code shown in the appendix is not supposed for production use. It focuses on basic examples of Flask and markdown integration.

Appendix

blog.py

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16

from flask import Flask, render_template
from flask.ext.misaka import Misaka

app = Flask(__name__, template_folder="views")
Misaka(app)

content = ""
with open('readme.md', 'r') as f:
    content = f.read()

@app.route("/")
def index():
    return render_template('index.html', text=content)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    app.run(debug=True)

views/index.html

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9

<!doctype html>
<html>
  <head>
    <title>My Markdown blogging site</title>
  </head>
  <body>
    {{ text|markdown }}
  </body>
</html>

readme.md

1
2
3

# My Title

## This is my blog with Markdown

Comments