mdrefine

style/inline-code ​

Writes each code span with the fewest backticks that its content allows, and joins a code span that is written across lines onto one line. Some editors, such as Obsidian's Live Preview, show a split code span differently from the rendered page.

Style rule, fixed by format. Presets: none. Dialects: all. Options: none.

Before:

markdown
Run `npm run
build` before the tests.

After:

markdown
Run `npm run build` before the tests.

Backticks: a span gets the fewest backticks whose run does not occur in its content, so ``a`` becomes `a`. Padding keeps backticks at the content's edges separate from the delimiters and preserves CommonMark's single-space stripping. Table cell escapes stay intact. A span keeps its delimiters where shortening them could pair with an earlier run in the same inline block.

Joining: a line break inside a code span renders as a space, so the content stays the same, and the spaces and tabs that start the next line are left out, as CommonMark and GitHub leave them out. On a lazy continuation line, one without its block quote's > or its list item's indentation, GitHub keeps them in the span, and so does the joined span; commonmark.js leaves them out, so outside the GitHub dialect such a span stays split.

Edge cases and advanced usage ​

Left as written: the exceptions of Forgejo and Gitea, and a split span whose joined line would read differently:

  • Where joining would move text onto the line of an alert's or a callout's marker, which holds an Obsidian callout's title.
  • Where the joined span needs a different number of backticks than it has, and an earlier run of that many in the same paragraph would pair with them.
  • Where a line inside the span ends with two spaces or a backslash: where its backticks do not pair, as on GitHub after an unpaired longer run, those markers make a hard line break. style/wrap keeps such a paragraph as written too. This conservative check also keeps the line break when the backticks do pair.

Dialect notes ​

In Obsidian: a span stays split where an == or [[ left as text on the joined lines could open a highlight or wikilink. A multiline span with one or two backticks, and the following source in its inline block, stay as written: Live Preview resets short code at the physical newline. Earlier independent inline text and later paragraphs can still format. The boundary protections describe the conservative cases.

style/wrap joins such a code span only in a paragraph that it wraps, and this rule also elsewhere, such as in a paragraph with a hard line break. content/inline-code-spacing reports blank space that renderers show at the ends of a span, which this rule leaves as written, because removing it would change the code.