This is my first attempt to create a Perl script.

This script is to convert Markdown files to plain text ones, with some "common" typographic substitutions.

When I finish it, it is assumed to work as follows:

1. Single-hyphen dashes are replaced with three hyphens: that is, foo - bar is replaced with foo---bar
2. Markdown-style italic is replaced with Org Mode-style italic: that is, foo *bar* baz is replaced with foo /bar/ baz
3. Blank lines are replaced with first-line indents, that is:
   ``` FROM THIS This is a 500-character line of text.

   This is another 500-character line of text. ```

   TO THIS This is a 500-character line of text. This is another 500- character line of text.

4. Lines are hard-wrapped at 72 characters, and additionally:
5. Any single-letter word, such as "a" or "I", if it happened to be at the end of a hard-wrapped line, unless it is the last word in a paragraph, is moved to the next hard-wrapped line, that is:
   FROM THIS He knows that I love bananas.

   TO THIS He knows that I love bananas.

And now the first draft. Please don't laugh too loudly 😀

```

!/usr/bin/perl

perl -pi -e 's/ - /---/g' $1 # foo - bar to foo---bar perl -pi -e 's/*///g' $1 # foo to /foo/ perl -pi -e 's/\n{2}/\n /g' $1 # blank lines to first-line indents ```

The first two lines work fine.

But I really don't understand why the third line doesn't replace blank lines with first-line indents.

Also, maybe someone can point me to an existing Perl or Awk script that does all of this.

submitted by /u/No-Usual-9631
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