why does a zero before a period disappear in a quoted environment?

Question

i just entered an answer that included a quote from the bibtex manual. the quote started with the number "10." from a list. i entered it first by cutting and pasting, and expected some "corruption" (omission of "fi" ligatures), but was surprised when the zero disappeared from the "10."

here's what came out from the string 10. The ...:

10. The PROCEEDINGS ...

the same thing happens if one adds more zeros (input = 10000.):

10000. The PROCEEDINGS ...

if a space is inserted between the zero and the period, the zero(s) reappear:

10 . The PROCEEDINGS ...

but then it's not an exact quote.

notice also the addition of a "blank line" following the one-line quotes that have been "truncated" of their zeros.

i think this is a bug ... i have trouble believing it's intentional.

Answer 1

This happens because Markdown treats such syntax as an ordered list:

Ordered lists use numbers followed by periods:

1.  Bird
2.  McHale
3.  Parish

It’s important to note that the actual numbers you use to mark the list have no effect on the HTML output Markdown produces. The HTML Markdown produces from the above list is:

<ol>
<li>Bird</li>
<li>McHale</li>
<li>Parish</li>
</ol>

As you found, one way to avoid the behavior is to add a space. Another is to escape the period with a backslash:

> 10\. The PROCEEDINGS ...

produces:

10. The PROCEEDINGS ...