✨ NEW: Add --enable-tables to the CLI

CHANGELOG.md

@@ -1,5 +1,9 @@
 # Change Log
 
+## Unreleased
+
+* ✨ Add `--enable-tables` to the CLI for file, standard input and interactive parsing.
+
 ## 4.2.0 - 2026-05-07
 
 * ✨ Add `make_fence_rule()` factory for configurable fence markers in [#394](https://github.com/executablebooks/markdown-it-py/pull/394)

README.md

@@ -101,17 +101,18 @@ Render markdown to HTML with markdown-it-py from the
 command-line:
 
 ```console
-usage: markdown-it [-h] [-v] [--stdin|filenames [filenames ...]]
+usage: markdown-it [-h] [-v] [--stdin] [--enable-tables] [filenames ...]
 
 Parse one or more markdown files, convert each to HTML, and print to stdout
 
 positional arguments:
-  --stdin        read source Markdown file from standard input
-  filenames      specify an optional list of files to convert
+  filenames        specify an optional list of files to convert
 
-optional arguments:
-  -h, --help     show this help message and exit
-  -v, --version  show program's version number and exit
+options:
+  -h, --help       show this help message and exit
+  -v, --version    show program's version number and exit
+  --stdin          read Markdown from standard input
+  --enable-tables  enable table parsing
 
 Interactive:
 
@@ -132,6 +133,15 @@ Batch:
 
 ```
 
+Tables are disabled by default, as in CommonMark.
+Use `--enable-tables` with any input mode to enable them:
+
+```bash
+markdown-it --enable-tables README.md > index.html
+markdown-it --enable-tables --stdin < README.md > index.html
+markdown-it --enable-tables
+```
+
 ## References / Thanks
 
 Big thanks to the authors of [markdown-it]:

markdown_it/cli/parse.py

@@ -19,50 +19,54 @@
 
 def main(args: Sequence[str] | None = None) -> int:
     namespace = parse_args(args)
+    md = MarkdownIt()
+    if namespace.enable_tables:
+        md.enable("table")
     if namespace.filenames:
-        convert(namespace.filenames)
+        convert(namespace.filenames, md)
     elif namespace.stdin:
-        convert_stdin()
+        convert_stdin(md)
     else:
-        interactive()
+        interactive(md)
     return 0
 
 
-def convert(filenames: Iterable[str]) -> None:
+def convert(filenames: Iterable[str], md: MarkdownIt | None = None) -> None:
     for filename in filenames:
-        convert_file(filename)
+        convert_file(filename, md)
 
 
-def convert_stdin() -> None:
+def convert_stdin(md: MarkdownIt | None = None) -> None:
     """
     Parse a Markdown file and dump the output to stdout.
     """
     try:
-        rendered = MarkdownIt().render(sys.stdin.read())
+        rendered = (md or MarkdownIt()).render(sys.stdin.read())
         print(rendered, end="")
     except OSError:
         sys.stderr.write("Cannot parse Markdown from the standard input.\n")
         sys.exit(1)
 
 
-def convert_file(filename: str) -> None:
+def convert_file(filename: str, md: MarkdownIt | None = None) -> None:
     """
     Parse a Markdown file and dump the output to stdout.
     """
     try:
         with open(filename, encoding="utf8", errors="ignore") as fin:
-            rendered = MarkdownIt().render(fin.read())
+            rendered = (md or MarkdownIt()).render(fin.read())
             print(rendered, end="")
     except OSError:
         sys.stderr.write(f'Cannot open file "{filename}".\n')
         sys.exit(1)
 
 
-def interactive() -> None:
+def interactive(md: MarkdownIt | None = None) -> None:
     """
     Parse user input, dump to stdout, rinse and repeat.
     Python REPL style.
     """
+    md = md or MarkdownIt()
     print_heading()
     contents = []
     more = False
@@ -71,7 +75,7 @@ def interactive() -> None:
             prompt, more = ("... ", True) if more else (">>> ", True)
             contents.append(input(prompt) + "\n")
         except EOFError:
-            print("\n" + MarkdownIt().render("\n".join(contents)), end="")
+            print("\n" + md.render("".join(contents)), end="")
             more = False
             contents = []
         except KeyboardInterrupt:
@@ -111,6 +115,9 @@ def parse_args(args: Sequence[str] | None) -> argparse.Namespace:
     parser.add_argument(
         "--stdin", action="store_true", help="read Markdown from standard input"
     )
+    parser.add_argument(
+        "--enable-tables", action="store_true", help="enable table parsing"
+    )
     parser.add_argument(
         "filenames", nargs="*", help="specify an optional list of files to convert"
     )

tests/test_cli.py

@@ -95,3 +95,37 @@ def test_interactive_render():
     # The rendered output is prefixed by a newline
     assert "\n<h1>hello</h1>\n" in output
     assert "Exiting" in output
+
+
+@pytest.mark.parametrize("route", ["files", "stdin", "interactive"])
+@pytest.mark.parametrize("enable_tables", [False, True])
+def test_tables(route, enable_tables, tmp_path, capsys):
+    """Table parsing is opt-in on every CLI route, preserving HTML settings."""
+    source = "a | b\n--- | ---\n1 | 2\n\n<em>raw</em> ~~plain~~\n"
+    expected = (
+        "<table>\n<thead>\n<tr>\n<th>a</th>\n<th>b</th>\n</tr>\n</thead>\n"
+        "<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td>1</td>\n<td>2</td>\n</tr>\n</tbody>\n</table>\n"
+        if enable_tables
+        else "<p>a | b\n--- | ---\n1 | 2</p>\n"
+    ) + "<p><em>raw</em> ~~plain~~</p>\n"
+    args = ["--enable-tables"] if enable_tables else []
+    if route == "files":
+        paths = [tmp_path / "first.md", tmp_path / "second.md"]
+        for path in paths:
+            path.write_text(source, encoding="utf8")
+        assert parse.main([*args, *map(str, paths)]) == 0
+        expected *= 2
+    elif route == "stdin":
+        with patch("sys.stdin", io.StringIO(source)):
+            assert parse.main([*args, "--stdin"]) == 0
+    else:
+        inputs = [*source.splitlines(), EOFError] * 2 + [KeyboardInterrupt]
+        with patch("builtins.input", side_effect=inputs):
+            assert parse.main(args) == 0
+        expected = (
+            f"{parse.version_str} (interactive)\n"
+            "Type Ctrl-D to complete input, or Ctrl-C to exit.\n"
+            + ("\n" + expected) * 2
+            + "\nExiting.\n"
+        )
+    assert capsys.readouterr().out == expected