Stylize italics in helptext using ANSI escapes

Author: kyluca

tests/data/jq_rendered

@@ -10,7 +10,7 @@
   - Output all elements from arrays (or all the values from objects) in a JSON file:
     jq '.[]' file.json
 
-  - Read JSON objects from a file into an array, and output it (inverse of `jq .[]`):
+  - Read JSON objects from a file into an array, and output it (inverse of jq .[]):
     jq --slurp . file.json
 
   - Output the first element in a JSON file:
@@ -19,7 +19,7 @@
   - Output the value of a given key of each element in a JSON text from stdin:
     cat file.json | jq 'map(.key_name)'
 
-  - Output the value of multiple keys as a new JSON object (assuming the input JSON has the keys `key_name` and `other_key_name`):
+  - Output the value of multiple keys as a new JSON object (assuming the input JSON has the keys key_name and other_key_name):
     cat file.json | jq '{my_new_key: .key_name, my_other_key: .other_key_name}'
 
   - Combine multiple filters:

tldr.py

@@ -1,6 +1,7 @@
 #!/usr/bin/env python3
 # PYTHON_ARGCOMPLETE_OK
 
+import itertools
 import sys
 import os
 import re
@@ -422,23 +423,40 @@ def output(page: str, plain: bool = False) -> None:
         if plain:
             print(line)
             continue
+
         elif len(line) == 0:
             continue
+
+        # Handle the command name
         elif line[0] == '#':
             line = ' ' * LEADING_SPACES_NUM + \
                 colored(line.replace('# ', ''), *colors_of('name')) + '\n'
             sys.stdout.buffer.write(line.encode('utf-8'))
+
+        # Handle the command description
         elif line[0] == '>':
             line = ' ' * (LEADING_SPACES_NUM - 1) + \
                 colored(
                     line.replace('>', '').replace('<', ''),
                     *colors_of('description')
                 )
             sys.stdout.buffer.write(line.encode('utf-8'))
+
+        # Handle an example description
         elif line[0] == '-':
             line = '\n' + ' ' * LEADING_SPACES_NUM + \
                 colored(line, *colors_of('example'))
+            # Stylize text within backticks using italics
+            if '`' in line:
+                # Backticks should occur in pairs, so str.split results in an odd number of elements
+                *parts, last_part = line.split('`')
+                # Setup an infinite cycle of italic and reset ANSI escape pairs
+                italics_escapes = itertools.cycle(('\x1B[3m', '\x1B[0m'))
+                # Rejoin the original string parts with the matching escape pairs
+                line = "".join(itertools.chain.from_iterable(zip(parts, italics_escapes))) + last_part
             sys.stdout.buffer.write(line.encode('utf-8'))
+
+        # Handle an example command
         elif line[0] == '`':
             line = line[1:-1]  # Remove backticks for parsing