Delirium delirium@hackish.org writes:
I'm not sure if it would be a more or less drastic change, but making bold be four tics instead of three would also solve the problem. Then without lookahead: 2 tics is italics; 3 ticks is an apostrophe plus italics; 4 tics is bold; 5 tics is an apostrophe plus bold; 6 tics is bold and italic; and 7 tics is an apostrophe plus bold and italic.
Sure, or simply use proper <b>XML markup</b>... This would have the nice side effect that it can span more than a <i>single line</i>.
Yes, I know, XML was not invented here and thus it isn't an option.