How does Github render the .wiki extension?

Question

I've just added a .wiki file (foo.wiki) to a Github repository. To my surprise, it is rendered as HTML by Github.

Which wiki syntax does Github use? What is their rendering engine?

Answer 1

In addition to GFM, GitHub supports a number of other markup formats, including Textile, Perl Plain Old Documentation, Emacs Org-mode, and ReStructured Text.

Though no support is explicitly listed for .wiki files, there is support for Mediawiki syntax in .mediawiki files. If I had to guess, I'd guess that .wiki files also use Mediawiki syntax.

Edit:

The OP has confirmed that .wiki files use Mediawiki syntax.

Answer 2

Up until yesterday (May 1st, 2014), the wiki editor was more a plain text editor, with a subset of GFM (GitHub Flavored Markdown) supported (as described in "GitHub wikis and Markdown", and detailed in "Editing Markdown for GitHub".

This is now changing, and the editor should be more consistent with the regular Ace editor used for GitHub repo data.

See "Wikis: now with more love"

more consistent rendering of wiki content alongside other markup in a repository

Answer 3

GitHub uses "GitHub Flavored Markdown," or GFM, across the site--in issues, comments, and pull requests. It differs from standard Markdown (SM) in a few significant ways, and adds some additional functionality.

If you're not already familiar with Markdown, take a look at Markdown Basics. If you'd like to know more about features that are available in issues, comments, and pull request descriptions, such as task lists, read Writing on GitHub.

On GitHub, you can see the differences between Markdown and GFM: plenty information are available there to master GFM and Markdown.

Markdown was developed by John Gruber: http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/

In wiki pages you can use MediaWiki syntax, but you have no facilities nor you'll be able to preview the result.