pandoc should not download and include an external audio file in the EPUB output

[fedelibre]

As emerged in this discussion, pandoc downloads and includes an audio file in the EPUB output file.

HTML output does not include external resources by default and you can include them with the option --self-contained. IMO epub output should work the same way.

Test file:

# Test

Testing the audio element from an external link:

<audio controls>
 <source src="http://www.sixbarsjail.it/tmp/bach_toccata.mp3" type="audio/mpeg">
</audio>

$ pandoc --version
pandoc 1.15.1.1

Command: pandoc -o output.epub inpub.md

[jgm]

Suggestion from pandoc-discuss:

In principle we could change this behavior, but a change in
the default here might break existing workflows. One
possibility would be to make this behavior sensitive to some
kind of flag. For example, if the data-external attribute
is set on <source> element, don't include in the EPUB.

[fedelibre]

Another thought: would it be possible to parse the link and check if it's a local path or an http:// link?
That way, it would work also when CommonMark will add the syntax to embed audio and video.

[jgm]

+++ Federico Bruni [Oct 24 15 01:31 ]:

Another thought: would it be possible to parse the link and check if
it's a local path or an http:// link?

Many people will want external resources to be embeded, so
that the epub is self-contained. Since that is the current
behavior, I'd rather have an explicit flag for this.

That way, it would work also when CommonMark will add the [1]syntax to
embed audio and video.

You've linked to a forum post where people are making
suggestions. It's not clear that CommonMark will have any
specific syntax for this, or what it will be.