Lightweight markup language for Python

Question

Programming a Python web application, I want to create a text area where the users can enter text in a lightweight markup language. The text will be imported to a html template and viewed on the page. Today I use this command to create the textarea, which allows users to enter any (html) text:

my_text = cgidata.getvalue('my_text', 'default_text')
ftable.AddRow([Label(_('Enter your text')),
               TextArea('my_text', my_text, rows=8, cols=60).Format()])

How can I change this so that only some (safe, eventually lightweight) markup is allowed? All suggestions including sanitizers are welcome, as long as it easily integrates with Python.

Answer 1

Use the python markdown implementation

import markdown
mode = "remove" # or "replace" or "escape"
md = markdown.Markdown(safe_mode=mode)
html = md.convert(text)

It is very flexible, you can use various extensions, create your own etc.

Answer 2

You could use restructured text . I'm not sure if it has a sanitizing option, but it's well supported by Python, and it generates all sorts of formats.