Markdown lists are not supported

[Timac]

Description

Markdown lists are not supported in Mermaid diagrams. When using a Markdown list in a diagram, you will see the error Unsupported markdown: list

Steps to reproduce

Example with '-'

1. Create a graph using a Markdown list

flowchart LR
    A[Node 1] --> B["`- Line1
    - Line 2
    - Line 3`"]

2. You see the error Unsupported markdown: list when the graph is rendered:

flowchart LR
    A[Node 1] --> B["`- Line1
    - Line 2
    - Line 3`"]

Loading

Example with '*'

1. Create a graph using a Markdown list

flowchart LR
    A[Node 1] --> B["`* Line1
    * Line 2
    * Line 3`"]

2. You see the error Unsupported markdown: list when the graph is rendered:

flowchart LR
    A[Node 1] --> B["`* Line1
    * Line 2
    * Line 3`"]

Loading

Setup

• Mermaid version: 11.4.1
• Browser and Version: Reproduced with Chrome and Safari

Workaround

A workaround is not to use characters like • or －:

flowchart LR
    A[Node 1] --> B["`• Line1
    • Line 2
    • Line 3`"]

is rendered as

flowchart LR
    A[Node 1] --> B["`• Line1
    • Line 2
    • Line 3`"]

Loading

flowchart LR
    A[Node 1] --> B["`－ Line1
    － Line 2
    － Line 3`"]

is rendered as

flowchart LR
    A[Node 1] --> B["`－ Line1
    － Line 2
    － Line 3`"]

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[KevinWang15]

I downgraded mermaid to workaround this issue

{
  "dependencies": {
    "mermaid": "^10",
  }
}

[Timac]

@KevinWang15 Nice catch. This bug is indeed a regression from Mermaid 10 to Mermaid 11.
Here is how the following diagram is rendered:

flowchart LR
    A[Node 1] --> B["- Line1
    - Line 2
    - Line 3"]

• Mermaid 10.9.3 ✅

• Mermaid 11.0.0-alpha.7 ✅

Mermaid 11.0.0 ❌

[digitalmoksha]

@Timac I actually don't think this is a bug. The example you gave

```mermaid
flowchart LR
    A[Node 1] --> B["- Line1
    - Line 2
    - Line 3"]
```

is not using the correct syntax to invoke markdown on 10.x. There you need

```mermaid
flowchart LR
    A[Node 1] --> B["`- Line1
    - Line 2
    - Line 3`"]
```

and when I run that on our 10.x installation, I get the same unsupported error. And the reason you get that error on 11.x with your example, is that they are ALWAYS processing markdown now, whether you have special syntax or not. At least from my testing.

I think in general, for both 10.x and 11.x, they do not support block level markdown, such as lists, blockquotes, etc. Only inline markdown, such as bold, italics, etc. Much like standard markdown tables, which also only support inline markdown.

[pfych]

Having this issue even with non-markdown labels

flowchart
    subgraph Corporate Network
        LDAP[LDAP-Based Identity Store] <-- "2. Authenticate" --> IDP
        User -- "1. App makes auth request" --> IDP["Portal/Identity Provider (IdP)"]
        IDP -- "3. SAML Assertion" --> User
    end
    
    subgraph AWS Cloud
        STS -- "5. Temporary Security Credentials" --> User
        User -- "4. AssumeRoleWithSAML API" --> STS("Secure Token Service (STS)")
        User -- "6. Access AWS" --> S3
        S3
    end

[claremacrae]

For the list item case, I found a workaround to restore the previous behaviour: put a \ before the character that was interpreted as being a list item:

-2["- [ ] do this first 🆔 abcdef"]:::TASK
+2["\- [ ] do this first 🆔 abcdef"]:::TASK

See the diffs in context in this commit:

• obsidian-tasks-group/obsidian-tasks@959c04a

And screenshots showing before-and-after here:

• docs: Fix "Unsupported markdown: list" mermaid diagram errors obsidian-tasks-group/obsidian-tasks#3361

[digitalmoksha]

Here is the bug issue opened by @ajuckel about processing labels as markdown even when not using their documented syntax. #6275. There are even a couple PRs to attempt to fix it.

@pfych, as @claremacrae pointed out, with markdown you can escape characters that are part of markdown syntax by using a \ in front of them. So you could change your labels, for example, to "2\. Authenticate"