CodeIgniter + Markdown + Libraries = Hell

When it comes to pulling in third party libraries in CodeIgniter, there seems to be this little dance you need to do to get things working - frankly it sucks.

One of the tasks I had on my to-do list was to get Markdown converting to HTML using this helpful set of PHP classes: http://michelf.ca/projects/php-markdown/

Put the markdown files from Michel Fortin into the third_party directory, in my case I created a directory called Md and moved the PHP files into the root of that directory (third_party/Md/).

Create a file called md.php in the libraries directory and in the md.php file put:

<?php
if (!defined('BASEPATH'))
  exit('No direct script access allowed');

set_include_path(APPPATH . 'third_party/' . PATH_SEPARATOR . get_include_path());

require_once APPPATH . 'third_party/Md/MarkdownInterface.php';
require_once APPPATH . 'third_party/Md/Markdown.php';

class Md extends Michelf\Markdown {
  function __construct($params = array()) {
    parent::__construct();
  }
}

Then to import and use it:

$this->load->library('md');
$html = $this->md->defaultTransform($markdown);

Orig. Photo: https://flic.kr/p/89e5oR