Substitutions inside literals in Asciidoc

Question

There doesn't appear to be a way to have variables (attributes, substitutions) parsed within literal text in Asciidoc, or else I'm missing something. I want to be able to set a variable and then call it inside a code block or literal string as such:

:version: 1.0.1
[code]
----
tar -xzvf mysoftware-{version}.tar.gz
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And have it parse to:

tar -xzvf mysoftware-1.0.1.tar.gz

This can't be impossible, right?

Answer 1

You can enable it for any block by using the subs attribute to the block. The subs attribute accepts any of the following (in a list):

• none - Disables substitutions
• normal - Performs all substitutions except for callouts
• verbatim - Replaces special characters and processes callouts
• specialchars / specialcharacters - Replaces <, >, and & with their corresponding entities
• quotes - Applies text formatting
• attributes - Replaces attribute references
• replacements - Substitutes textual and character reference replacements
• macros - Processes macros
• post_replacements - Replaces the line break character (+)

More info can be found in the User Manual, including an example very close to what you're trying to accomplish.

Answer 2

Substitutions inside listing blocks are off by default, but can be controlled with the subs parameter:

:version: 1.0.1
[code, subs="attributes"]
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tar -xzvf mysoftware-{version}.tar.gz
----