Unclear spec regarding nested ordered lists with start numbers

Spec
1

tl:dr, look at this example.

I was looking into switching between 2 different commonmark-compliant C# libraries when I noticed that the way they treated nested ordered lists differed if i started the nested list with a number that isn’t 1.

Take the following code:

10. asd
11. asd
    1. start at one

---

10. asd
11. asd
    3. start at three

Using CommonMark.Net this renders as

<ol start="10">
<li>asd</li>
<li>asd
<ol>
<li>start at one</li>
</ol>
</li>
</ol>
<hr>
<ol start="10">
<li>asd</li>
<li>asd
<ol start="3">
<li>start at three</li>
</ol>
</li>
</ol>

However, using Markdig as well as the Commonmark js reference i get the following result (which isnt even a nested list):

<ol start="10">
<li>asd</li>
<li>asd
<ol>
<li>start at one</li>
</ol>
</li>
</ol>
<hr />
<ol start="10">
<li>asd</li>
<li>asd
3. start at three</li>
</ol>

I had a look at the latest spec (0.26 at time of writing) and I cannot find anything regarding startnumbers on nested ordered lists, meaning I think there is room for clarification here.

Personally, I think commonmark.Net’s approach is more correct as it maintains the existence of the nested list which looks more consistent.

What do others think?

2

This makes sense.

interestingly enough, commonmark 0.26.0 and league/commonmark (PHP) produce substantially different output here. It is league/commonmark that produces similar output to CommonMark.Net, including a sublist starting with 3:

<ol start="10">
<li>asd</li>
<li>asd
<ol>
<li>start at one</li>
</ol>
</li>
</ol>
<hr>
<ol start="10">
<li>asd</li>
<li>asd
<ol start="3">
<li>start at three</li>
</ol>
</li>
</ol>

As for backwards compatibility, most implementations on BabelMark create a sublist that starts with 1. Only commonmark 0.26.0 and markdig don’t produce a sublist at all.

3

This divergence is due to a relatively recent change to CommonMark (which I’m still not fully persuaded is the right approach).

The change says that an ordered list can only interrupt a paragraph (i.e. with no preceding blank line) when it starts with 1.. For motivation and background (as well as some dissent), see Blank lines before lists, revisited