Is there a syntax for textless links in Markdown?

Question

I want to write

http://www.foo.com/ 

and get the link with the URL as text (for example, in the HTML output). I do not want to write

 [http://www.foo.com/](http://www.foo.com/) 

Is it possible?

Answer 1

Yes, here is the relevant section of the documentation :

AUTOMATIC LINKS

Markdown supports a shortcut style for creating “automatic” links for URLs and email addresses: just place the URL or email address using angle brackets. This means that if you want to display the actual text of the URL or email address, as well as have a link to clicks, you can do this:

 <http://example.com/> 

Markdown will turn this into:

 <a href="http://example.com/">http://example.com/</a>