How to get empty paragraphs when using mdast-util-from-markdown

[nicknikolov]

I use mdast-util-from-markdown through remark-parse and I'd like to get the empty paragraph in my AST.
E.g. when using parsing something like

foo

baa

I get

{
  "type": "root",
  "children": [
    {
      "type": "paragraph",
      "children": [
        {
          "type": "text",
          "value": "foo",
          "position": {
            "start": {
              "line": 2,
              "column": 1,
              "offset": 1
            },
            "end": {
              "line": 2,
              "column": 4,
              "offset": 4
            }
          }
        }
      ],
      "position": {
        "start": {
          "line": 2,
          "column": 1,
          "offset": 1
        },
        "end": {
          "line": 2,
          "column": 4,
          "offset": 4
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "type": "paragraph",
      "children": [
        {
          "type": "text",
          "value": "bar",
          "position": {
            "start": {
              "line": 4,
              "column": 1,
              "offset": 6
            },
            "end": {
              "line": 4,
              "column": 4,
              "offset": 9
            }
          }
        }
      ],
      "position": {
        "start": {
          "line": 4,
          "column": 1,
          "offset": 6
        },
        "end": {
          "line": 4,
          "column": 4,
          "offset": 9
        }
      }
    }
  ],
  "position": {
    "start": {
      "line": 1,
      "column": 1,
      "offset": 0
    },
    "end": {
      "line": 6,
      "column": 1,
      "offset": 11
    }
  }
}

So the empty paragraphs around my text get "lost" but I would like to use them to visualise the markdown text as is (including the empty paragraphs on line 1 3 and 5).

What's the best way achieve this?

PS: Hopefully this is the most appropriate place to ask, if not let me know! Thanks

[wooorm]

There are no empty paragraphs in markdown 🤷‍♂️

Could you expand more on what and why you want this?

[nicknikolov]

I see. I think you're spot on and I have a conceptual misunderstanding.

As to my use case, it's pretty simple. I have a markdown editor on the client. I just want to load markdown files and preserve the structure, so

foo 

bar

stays as is, rather than becoming

foo
bar

But I suppose, judging by what you're telling me, this is a problem with the transformer rather than the markdown AST?

[nicknikolov]

Oops I missed Christian's comment above which actually helps a lot, thanks!

[wooorm]

As to my use case, it's pretty simple. I have a markdown editor on the client. I just want to load markdown files and preserve the structure, so ...

If you want the raw text, then why are you parsing it with a markdown parser? If you want the plain text, get the file and don’t pass it to a markdown parser, but display that raw file instead?

[nicknikolov]

No, I do parse and render the AST rather than the raw text. But Christian is right I think it's up to the transformer/client. For example, since I render in HTML so I would either have to add bottom margin to show the split or something like that (maybe add an extra p tag).

I think the confusion came from the fact that I had one conceptual understanding of what a paragraph is based on HTML and that is slightly different with Markdown.

In HTML you can do

<p>foo</p>
<p></p>
<p>bar</p>
<p></p>

and this is what I wanted my pipeline to produce. But it turns out those empty lines signify the split of the paragraph in Markdown so in the end you get only two. So I will need to think about how to manage that difference.

[wooorm]

Nice. Sounds like you’ve got a good understanding of what’s going on and how to solve it.

One thing though: In HTML you also shouldn’t add empty paragraphs. HTML has meaning. So this might be more of a CSS thing, which adds presentation!