Markdown and external links

Question

I have a Rails 4 app (which uses RedCarpet) and a helper method that looks like:

def markdown(text)
  options = {
    escape_html:     true,
    hard_wrap:       true, 
    link_attributes: { rel: 'nofollow', target: "_blank" },
    space_after_headers: true,
    fenced_code_blocks: true
  }

  extensions = {
    autolink:           true,
    superscript:        true,
    disable_indented_code_blocks: true
  }

  renderer = Redcarpet::Render::HTML.new(options)
  markdown = Redcarpet::Markdown.new(renderer, extensions)

  markdown.render(text).html_safe
end

My problem is that if someone puts in for example [Example here](www.example.com) , then is parsed, and someone clicks on the link, it goes to www.mywebsite.com/www.example.com , instead of www.example.com .

How do I fix this?

Answer 1

For me, running your method with "[Example here](www.example.com)" and RedCarpet 3.0 returns the following:

"<p><a href=\\"www.example.com\\" rel=\\"nofollow\\" target=\\"_blank\\">Example here</a></p>\\n"

So, it appears it is something else in your application. If you're noticing the problem on the client side (ie from clicking on a link in your browser), my guess is it's in your views somewhere in the HTML. I'd search your app's file directory, particularly any HTML, for "www.mywebsite.com".