GitHub MarkDown: Are Macros and Variables possible?
github, github-flavored-markdown
Solution
Below are a few ways to write Reference-Links
[I'm an inline-style link](https://www.somewebsite.com)
[I'm an inline-style link with title](https://www.somewebsite.com "somewebsite's Homepage")
[I'm a reference-style link][Arbitrary case-insensitive reference text]
[I'm a relative reference to a repository file](../blob/master/LICENSE)
[You can use numbers for reference-style link definitions][1]
Or leave it empty and use the [link text itself]
Some text to show that the reference links can follow later.
[arbitrary case-insensitive reference text]: https://www.somewebsite.org
[1]: http://somewebsite.org
[link text itself]: http://www.somewebsite.com
Problem
I've been learning github markdown, I had a question about variables and macros. is it possible to define a variable or macro to prevent repeated printing of a block of text? The use case is that I have a table producing a big grid of hyperlinks - the links look like the below. ``` http://www.a-big-long-big-big-long-hyperlink/more-long-stuff?id=1234 ``` it would be nice if I could do something like the below once: ``` $link=http://www.a-big-long-big-big-long-hyperlink/more-long-stuff?id ``` and then in each cell in the table, I can say something like ``` $link=1234 ``` Some other cell ``` $link=2345 ``` the idea being that: - The table (which has ~10 columns and ~10 rows) is a bit easier to see on a normal screen, at the moment with the prefix to the links being so long, it looks really ugly as the links wrap to the next line - If I want to change the root link, I can change it in one place (yes, I know I could do search and replace in an editor!) Cheers.