jgm / pandoc-server

Simple server app for pandoc conversions.

pandoc-server

Note: This project is obsolete. Starting with version 2.19.2, pandoc itself can be run as a full-featured server. See the pandoc documentation for details.

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A small example of a servant-based server for doing pandoc conversions. Customize to fit your needs!

Installation

You will need stack or cabal. With stack:

% stack install

The executable will be put in ~/.local/bin, so make sure this is in your path.

Running the server

% pandoc-server

This makes the server available at localhost port 8080.

Using the server

There are two endpoints.

/convert expects a POST request with a JSON body containing the following fields:

• text (text to convert)
• from (defaults to "markdown")
• to (defaults to "html")
• wrapText ("WrapAuto" (default), "WrapNone", or "WrapPreserve")
• columns (integer, defaults to 72)
• standalone (boolean, defaults to false)
• template (defaults to the default template for the output format)

Example of use (with httpie):

% http POST http://localhost:8080/convert text=:+1: from=markdown+emoji to=mediawiki Accept:text/plain
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: text/plain;charset=utf-8
Date: Wed, 30 Jun 2021 15:51:15 GMT
Server: Warp/3.3.16
Transfer-Encoding: chunked

<span class="emoji" data-emoji="+1">👍</span>

/convert-batch expects a POST request with a JSON body containing a list of JSON objects of the sort provided to /convert. (This can be used to save on network overhead.)

It returns a JSON list of the converted results.

Example of use (with curl):

% cat d.json
[
  {
    "from": "markdown",
    "to": "latex",
    "text": "*Hello* world."
  },
  {
    "from": "markdown",
    "to": "html",
    "text": "*Hello* world."
  }
]
% curl -d @d.json -H Content-Type:application/json -H Accept:application/json http://127.0.0.1:8080/convert-batch
["\\emph{Hello} world.","<p><em>Hello</em> world.</p>"]%

Performance

Measured with ab on a 2.3 GHz i9 MacBook Pro:

• For 10,000 sequential conversions of a very short text from markdown to latex, 2852 requests per second.

• With 10 parallel threads making requests, 4081 requests per second.

Better performance can be achieved by using /convert-batch.