Automatic TOC in github-flavoured-markdown

Question

Is it possible to generate an automatic Table of Contents using Github Flavoured Markdown?

Answer 1

Here's a shell script I threw together today for this. Might need to tweak it for your needs, but it should be a good starting point.

cat README.md \
    | sed -e '/```/ r pf' -e '/```/,/```/d' \
    | grep "^#" \
    | tail -n +2 \
    | tr -d '`' \
    | sed 's/# \([a-zA-Z0-9`. -]\+\)/- [\1](#\L\1)/' \
    | awk -F'(' '{for(i=2;i<=NF;i++)if(i==2)gsub(" ","-",$i);}1' OFS='(' \
    | sed 's/^####/      /' \
    | sed 's/^###/    /' \
    | sed 's/^##/  /' \
    | sed 's/^#//'

If anyone knows a better way to do those final # replacements, please add a comment. I tried various things and wasn't happy with any, so I just brute forced it.