ImportError: cannot import name 'unescape_string' from 'markdown_it.common.normalize_url' when formatting text

[pdehaan]

Describe the bug

context
When I try and format a simple text string using mdformat.text(), i get an error. Here's my simplified test case:

import mdformat

clean = mdformat.text("** hello World*")
print(clean)

expectation
I expected to see my horribly malformed Markdown string throw an error or somehow be prettified.

bug
But instead an unexpected error happens
Here's an error message I ran into...

% uv run mdformat-test.py 
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/Users/peterdehaan/Dev/python-test/feedparser-test/mdformat-test.py", line 1, in <module>
    import mdformat
  File "/Users/peterdehaan/Dev/python-test/feedparser-test/.venv/lib/python3.13/site-packages/mdformat/__init__.py", line 4, in <module>
    from mdformat._api import file, text
  File "/Users/peterdehaan/Dev/python-test/feedparser-test/.venv/lib/python3.13/site-packages/mdformat/_api.py", line 4, in <module>
    from mdformat._util import EMPTY_MAP, build_mdit
  File "/Users/peterdehaan/Dev/python-test/feedparser-test/.venv/lib/python3.13/site-packages/mdformat/_util.py", line 8, in <module>
    import mdformat.plugins
  File "/Users/peterdehaan/Dev/python-test/feedparser-test/.venv/lib/python3.13/site-packages/mdformat/plugins.py", line 7, in <module>
    from mdformat.renderer.typing import RendererFunc
  File "/Users/peterdehaan/Dev/python-test/feedparser-test/.venv/lib/python3.13/site-packages/mdformat/renderer/__init__.py", line 8, in <module>
    from markdown_it.common.normalize_url import unescape_string
ImportError: cannot import name 'unescape_string' from 'markdown_it.common.normalize_url' (/Users/peterdehaan/Dev/python-test/feedparser-test/.venv/lib/python3.13/site-packages/markdown_it/common/normalize_url.py)

I'm a bit new to Python, but here's my pyproject.toml, since I assume that'd be the first or second question:

[project]
name = "feedparser-test"
version = "0.1.0"
description = "Add your description here"
readme = "README.md"
requires-python = ">=3.13"
dependencies = [
    "feedparser>=6.0.11",
    "markdown-it-py>=4.0.0",
    "markdownify>=1.2.0",
    "mdformat>=0.6.0",
    "mdit-py-plugins>=0.5.0",
    "pydantic>=2.11.7",
    "python-dateutil>=2.9.0.post0",
    "python-slugify>=8.0.4",
]

Reproduce the bug

import mdformat

clean = mdformat.text("** hello World*")
print(clean)

But I think this is possibly a conflict between mdformat and "markdown-it-py>=4.0.0"

List your environment

Oddly, it seems like calling --version throws the same error. Digging into the .venv/lib site packages, it seems like I'm on 0.6.0 which seems... old.

mdformat --version
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/Users/peterdehaan/Dev/python-test/feedparser-test/.venv/bin/mdformat", line 4, in <module>
    from mdformat.__main__ import run
  File "/Users/peterdehaan/Dev/python-test/feedparser-test/.venv/lib/python3.13/site-packages/mdformat/__init__.py", line 4, in <module>
    from mdformat._api import file, text
  File "/Users/peterdehaan/Dev/python-test/feedparser-test/.venv/lib/python3.13/site-packages/mdformat/_api.py", line 4, in <module>
    from mdformat._util import EMPTY_MAP, build_mdit
  File "/Users/peterdehaan/Dev/python-test/feedparser-test/.venv/lib/python3.13/site-packages/mdformat/_util.py", line 8, in <module>
    import mdformat.plugins
  File "/Users/peterdehaan/Dev/python-test/feedparser-test/.venv/lib/python3.13/site-packages/mdformat/plugins.py", line 7, in <module>
    from mdformat.renderer.typing import RendererFunc
  File "/Users/peterdehaan/Dev/python-test/feedparser-test/.venv/lib/python3.13/site-packages/mdformat/renderer/__init__.py", line 8, in <module>
    from markdown_it.common.normalize_url import unescape_string
ImportError: cannot import name 'unescape_string' from 'markdown_it.common.normalize_url' (/Users/peterdehaan/Dev/python-test/feedparser-test/.venv/lib/python3.13/site-packages/markdown_it/common/normalize_url.py)

Looks like ths is a comflict w/ markdown-it-py when I try and force some updates to mdformat==0.7.22:

% uv add "mdformat>=0.7.22" --upgrade-package mdformat
  × No solution found when resolving dependencies:
  ╰─▶ Because only mdformat<=0.7.22 is available and mdformat==0.7.22 depends on markdown-it-py>=1.0.0,<4.0.0, we can conclude that mdformat>=0.7.22 depends on markdown-it-py>=1.0.0,<4.0.0.
      And because your project depends on markdown-it-py>=4.0.0 and mdformat>=0.7.22, we can conclude that your project's requirements are unsatisfiable.
  help: If you want to add the package regardless of the failed resolution, provide the `--frozen` flag to skip locking and syncing.

[pdehaan]

Sorry, forgot to link to related #285.
Or perhaps this is a dupe/obsolete since uv add seems to be adding a very old version of mdformat (possibly due to conflicts w/ existing markdown-it-py dependency)

[pdehaan]

Possibly fixed by #534, I'll recheck when a new version hits PyPi

[hukkin]

There was no markdown-it-py v4 support until mdformat 1.0.0. You should try again now!