• It would be great if the existing ASTComment infrastructure would be extended to support Markdown in Doxygen comments. • The existing ASTComment offers comprehensive structuring of the comment body, with blocks, paragraphs and so on. • It would only be natural that we extend this with support for markdown specific elements, like lists and so on. • This would best enable consumers to have the full combined structure of the existing parsing, together with the new feature. • This would also better serve other downstream consumers, besides clang-doc itself, versus an approach where markdown support is delegated to another layer or library outside of clang. • Currently, parsing markdown starting from the existing ASTComment structure is awkward: Compiler Explorer /** Brief text.
Article Summaries:
- Markdown support in ASTComment
A proposal has been put forward to extend Clang’s ASTComment infrastructure to natively support Markdown syntax. Currently, ASTComment parses Doxygen comments into blocks and paragraphs but fails to capture Markdown‑specific elements such as lists and line breaks, leading to identical ASTs for structurally different comments. The new design would embed Markdown constructs directly into the AST, allowing downstream tools (e.g., clang‑doc, Compiler Explorer) to access a richer, combined structure without delegating parsing to external libraries. The initiative follows the GSoC 2026 “Improving Clang‑Doc” effort and seeks a design that satisfies all stakeholders.
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