Make markdown respect a double newline as end of list formatting

Question

I was writing a question in which I used a list to indicate the steps my code takes, immediately followed by the code. Like this:

• Foo the bar

• bar the foo

  Foo = bar / 12 bar = 6 / Foo

Albeit being properly indented with four spaces and two newlines inbetween the list and the code this doesn't work. As a work around I can add a <br> tag in between like this:

• Foo the bar
• bar the foo

Foo = bar / 12
bar = 6 / Foo

But this requires three blank lines between the list and the codeblock. Can we please make markdown respect two new lines as being the end of the list?

ps. I know there are a lot of bug reports about this, but this is a feature-request.

Answer 1

Treating a double newline specially is not how Markdown works.

To terminate a list or other indented Markdown content, you can use an empty comment instead. For example:

 -  foo
 -  bar

<!-- -->

    code { block }

which renders as:

• foo
• bar

code { block }

Answer 2

Use fences rather than indenting code blocks:

- Foo the bar
- bar the foo

```
Foo = bar / 12 bar = 6 / Foo
```

• Foo the bar
• bar the foo

Foo = bar / 12 bar = 6 / Foo