What is the difference between README and README.md in GitHub projects?
GithubMarkdownGithub Problem Overview
I've noticed some GitHub projects have not only a README file, but also a README.md file.
What is the difference between these files? I know README serves also as introductory text in the project repository page but I have no idea what README.md does.
Github Solutions
Solution 1 - Github
.md is markdown. README.md is used to generate the html summary you see at the bottom of projects. Github has their own flavor of Markdown.
Order of Preference: If you have two files named README and README.md, the file named README.md is preferred, and it will be used to generate github's html summary.
FWIW, Stack Overflow uses local Markdown modifications as well (also see Stack Overflow's C# Markdown Processor)
Solution 2 - Github
.md stands for markdown and is generated at the bottom of your github page as html.
Typical syntax includes:
Will become a heading
==============
Will become a sub heading
--------------
*This will be Italic*
**This will be Bold**
- This will be a list item
- This will be a list item
Add a indent and this will end up as code
For more details: http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/
Solution 3 - Github
.md extension stands for Markdown, which Github uses, among others, to format those files.
Read about Markdown:
http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markdown
Also:
Solution 4 - Github
README.md or .mkdn or .markdown denotes that the file is markdown formatted.
Markdown is a markup language. With it you can easily display headers or have italic words, or bold or almost anything that can be done to text