Write your readme in Markdown instead of plain text. Markdown makes it easy to format text, include images, and link as needed to additional documentation from your readme. Here are some great readmes that use this format and speak to all three audiences, for reference and inspiration. Beginning of the README from my NSFW Filter project. A good-looking and helpful README file can make your project stand out and grab attention from the developer community. It will help them understand your project, how they can get it working and why they should contribute. Nice rant there! Formatting is an essential part of README. You can learn about how to format your README from here and here. In the end, Keep in mind — You don’t need to go full-bore Readme Driven Development, you.
How to create README file for your git code
What is a README?
A well formatted text file that is used to document important information about your GIT project for any user who starts to use it for the first time.
Sample README.mdfile
Generally there is just 1 README.md file per project. But if needed it can also be created for each module in a project.
How to create a README?
Most commonly used format for README files are markdown language. That’s why you see a file extension ‘.md’. markdown language can be thought similar to HTML.
Steps to create a README.md:
When a new git project is created a blank markdown file README.md file is created automatically.
- Open the README.md file using a text editor. You can use text editor like Notepad, notepad++, Sublime etc.
- Edit the file using markdown language. Learn markdown language syntax from here.
- Commit the file to git to see the preview . Alternatively, you can use any editor like Atom, Emacs, Sublime Text, Vim to create and preview the file.
You can also directly open the file in Git UI and edit it using the markdown language. Git UI also has an option to Preview the file .
That’s It !
Sample README File:
Find below the template of a README.md file written using markdown language syntax.
Copy the below to any text editor to begin creating your README.md file.
OUTPUT README:
The output of sample README.md after committing the file in git looks like below.
Markdown Syntax
As git README.md file is created using markdown language, learning some basic markdown syntax can be very useful to style your README.md file.
Learn syntax for the following most commonly used elements in the git README.md
- Text formatting
- List creation
- Code block creation
- Table creation
Text Formatting:
Bold: To create text as bold enclose it in double stars or double underscore.
Italic : To create text as bold enclose it in single star or single underscore.
Syntax:
**bold** OR __bold__
*Italic* OR _Italic_
Output:
bold OR bold
Italic OR Italic
Lists:
Ordered lists: Markdown syntax for creating numbered list is just by putting numbers in front of each row.
Syntax:
Output:
- One
- Two
- Three
Unordered lists: Bulleted lists can be created using star or dashes.
Syntax 1:
Output:
- Star is used to create a bullet list item
- Item 2
Syntax 2:
Output:
- You can also use Dashes instead of stars
- Parent Item
- Item 1
- Item 2
Code Blocks:
Backticks are used to create code blocks .For inline code wrap it in single backticks.
Syntax:
`variable a = 20`
Output:
For multiline code block : Use spaces for indentation & use 4 backticks for code blocks without indentation:
Syntax:
Github Readme Formatting
Output:
Syntax:
Output:
Create Tables:
Tables are created using dashes and pipes. Dashes are used to underline the headers and pipes are used to separate the columns.Check the example below.
How To Make A Readme File
Syntax:
Output:
Readme Formatting Gitlab
Summary
How To Write A Readme File
In this article, we learnt what is readme and we also learnt how to create a readme file for your project.
I hope you liked it !