Markdown Anchor Link With Same Name But Different Sections

Question

You can link to an anchor heading in markdown quite easily.
[link to anchor heading](#background)

Plenty of stackoverflow questions deal with it such as this one or this one.

But I cannot seem to find a way to link to anchors that share the same name but are in different sections.

So for example, I cannot link to the background section in a different section.
[link to database background](#database#background)

As opposed to say :
[link to front end background](#front-end#background)

This does not work either.
[link to database background](#database##background)

I would expect the markdown anchor link to follow the section path specified. Is this not possible? Or am I using the wrong syntax?

Answer 1

As stated in the Markdown Guide, some applications allow you to use HTML tags in Markdown-formatted text (e.g. GitHub). Check your Markdown application's documentation to be sure.

If HTML is allowed, you can use the following:

# Front end

- [Background](#front-end-background)

<h2 id="front-end-background">Background</h2>

# Database

- [Background](#database-background)

<h2 id="database-background">Background</h2>

In the example above, <h2> is the same as ##. It also works with other headings.