And the test suite ++

> One thing I don't understand is the inclusion of > < characters in the pre- and post-markup tag delimiters

Because the repetitive solution with tf() needs to ignore previous runs.

*/_word_/* -> <b>/_word_/</b> -> <b><i>_word_</i></b> -> etc.

The recursive solution with rec() doesn't really need it, one of the reasons why I prefer this approach.

> probably because I'm not familiar with wikisyntax.

No you are not wrong, there was information missing.

In this particular case the syntax is also meant to coexist with more verbose html tags.

There are cases where one doesn't want to have a whitespace in between neighboring tags.

Just compare Re^3: Good Intentions: Wikisyntax for the Monastery and the complaint about 'ARGV'<br> not expanding.