Cross-reference (named anchor) in markdown
Is there markdown syntax for the equivalent of:
Take me to <a href="#pookie">pookie</a>
...
<a name="pookie">this is pookie</a>
Answer
Take me to [pookie](#pookie)
should be the correct markdown syntax to jump to the anchor point named pookie.
To insert an anchor point of that name use HTML:
<a name="pookie"></a>
Markdown doesn't seem to mind where you put the anchor point. A useful place to put it is in a header. For example:
### <a name="tith"></a>This is the Heading
works very well. (I'd demonstrate here but SO's renderer strips out the anchor.)
Note on self-closing tags and id= versus name=
An earlier version of this post suggested using <a id='tith' />, using the self-closing syntax for XHTML, and using the id attribute instead of name.
XHTML allows for any tag to be 'empty' and 'self-closed'. That is, <tag /> is short-hand for <tag></tag>, a matched pair of tags with an empty body. Most browsers will accept XHTML, but some do not. To avoid cross-browser problems, close the tag explicitly using <tag></tag>, as recommended above.
Finally, the attribute name= was deprecated in XHTML, so I originally used id=, which everyone recognises. However, HTML5 now creates a global variable in JavaScript when using id=, and this may not necessarily be what you want. So, using name= is now likely to be more friendly.
(Thanks to Slipp Douglas for explaining XHTML to me, and nailer for pointing out the HTML5 side-effect — see the comments and nailer's answer for more detail. name= appears to work everywhere, though it is deprecated in XHTML.)